India has seen a decline of six per cent in the number of maternal mortalities, according to latest figures released by the Registrar General of India. While the Sample Registration Survey (SRS) had recorded a

Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) of India of 130 in 2014-2016, it has declined to 122 in 2015-17, the Registrar said in a statement on Friday. The MMR is derived as a proportion of maternal deaths per 1,00,000 live births reported under the SRS.

A sample of 64, 75, 970 females between 15 to 49 years was studied between 2015-17. While there were about 4, 29, 173 live births in this population, 525 mothers died during this time, the Registrar noted.

The statement further said that the decline has been most significant in Empowered Action Group States - Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and Assam from 188 to 175. Among the Southern States include include Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu the decline has been from 77 to 72 and in the other States from 93 to 90.

While the figures have been averaged out for the purpose of analysis, MMR in individual states like Kerala is the lowest and stands at 42, whereas its the highest in Assam at 229. Uttar Pradesh follows close on Assam’s heels at 216 and the third highest MMR is in Madhya Pradesh at 188.

The maternal deaths being a rare event require prohibitively large sample size to provide robust estimates. In order to enhance the SRS sample size, the results have been derived by following the practice of pooling the three years data to yield reliable estimates of maternal mortality, the statement said.

United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals require India to bring down it’s MMR to 70 by 2030.