Delhi's future is not healthy, Montek writes to Sheila

The infant mortality rate (IMR) in Delhi has increased, Planning Commission Deputy Chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia has told Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.

Updated on: Jun 16, 2010, 01:36:23 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The infant mortality rate (IMR) in Delhi has increased, Planning Commission Deputy Chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia has told Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.

The IMR — death rate of children below the age of six months — had risen from 12.9 per 1,000 live births in 2005-06 to 25.4 in 2007-08. There was a slight improvement in 2008-09 with the rate falling to 18.4 deaths per 1,000 live births.

"The IMR is still quite high," Ahluwalia wrote in a letter to Dikshit. "The pace of improvement needs to be accelerated to achieve the target of 10 or less by 2015 as stipulated in the Delhi Human Development Report."

The apparent reason for high infant mortality is fewer births at the institutions in the Capital. Ahluwalia said according to the National Family Health Survey-3, only 61 per cent of deliveries in Delhi take places in institutions. In many slum areas, most of the children are not delivered in institutions.

"The data indicates a need for improvement in public education and also in facilities for institutional deliveries for lower-income families," he said.

The commission also said Delhi's aim to make it a child-friendly city will require improvement in the Integrated Child Development Scheme and health facilities and providing safe drinking water.

"The participation of health functionaries in vaccination, health check-up is less than optimum and could be the reason for universal vaccination and use of micro-nutrients not being fully implementation," he said.

The commission also discussed city's infrastructure in the letter. It expressed interest in solving parking problems and making arrangements for adequate sewer system and garbage disposal.

These issues are likely to be discussed at the commission's Wednesday meeting to decide Delhi's annual plan for 2010-11.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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