Bengaluru: The latest National Family Health Survey, (NFHS-4 conducted in 2015-16) for Karnataka is now available. Even though state has made steady progress in improving all round development in Human Development Index, this report reveals that state lags behind in critical areas like declining sex ratio, Infant Mortality Rate, woman marriage before the age of 18 years, health coverage, clean drinking water facility, sanitation etc.As expected compare to rural areas, urban areas of the state have reported better facilities and ranking.

Key factors

One of the major findings of the report is that sex ratio has come down from 1,028 to 2005-06 to 979. According to the findings, sex ratio is 990 in rural Karnataka and 963 in urban Karnataka. But what makes this trend more alarming is that in last five years, number of girl children born in the state has come down drastically. According to the report, sex ratio at birth for children born in the last five years (females per 1,000 males) is 910. It was 922 in 2005-06. Shockingly this number is just 875 in Urban Karnataka while it stands at 935 in Rural Karnataka.

Another highlight of the report is that fertility of the women has decreased in last one decade which is a positive sign. According to the findings, total fertility rate (children per woman) has come down from 2.1 in 2005-06 to 1.8 in 2015-16. Another finding is that percentage of women aged between 15-19 years who were already mothers or pregnant at the time of the survey has come down by a whooping margin of around 10%. This was 17.0% in 2005-06 while now it is just 7.8%.