GOVERNMENT OF BENGAL.
Local Self-Government.
Public.
CALCUTTA, THE 2nd APRIL 1930.
RESOLUTION—No. 1050 P. H.
Minister-in-charge: The Hon'ble Kumar Shib Shekha-
reswar Ray.
READ—
The Report of the Director of Public
Health, the Sanitary Board and
the Chief Engineer, Public Health
Department, for the year 1928.
READ ALSO—
The fourteenth triennial report on
vaccination in Bengal for the
years
1926-27, 1927-28 and
1928-29.
1. Public
Health.—(Statistical,
Epidemiological and General Public
Heath Administration.)
Population.—For the purpose of this
review the total population of Bengal,
excluding the Chittagong Hill Tracts, is
taken as 46,522,293 (1921 Census).
The vital statistics for the year 1928
taken as they stand show an increase of
almost 1,00,000 in the number of births
over those for the previous year,
1,375,680 as against 1,286,863 and
practically stationary figures for deaths,
1,189,015 as against 1,189,370 in the
previous year. On this basis the pro-
vincial birth rate rose from 27.7 per
thousand in 1927 to 29.6 per thousand
in 1928, as against the quinquennial
average of 28.8; but remains the lowest
provincial birth rate in India except
that of Burma. The aggregate birth
rate in rural areas (30.2) was nearly
fifty per cent. higher than in urban areas
(20.4), but no exact inference can be
drawn from these figures as to industrial
vital statistics as the towns include the
numerous rural townships in Bengal.
The death rate for the whole province
was 25.5 per thousand as against 25.6
per thousand in 1927.
The Director of Public Health has
occasion to point out every year that
these figures can only be taken as a
collateral index to the true vital
statistics and would estimate the margin
of error to be as high as 27 per cent.
The transfer of the duty of recording
vital statistics to Union Boards has
increased the Director's difficulties in
obtaining these essential figures and even
in the municipalities supervision over
registration of births and deaths is far
from adequate. No less than ten
municipalities returned the quite impos-
sible death rate of less than 10 per
thousand. The vital statistics for the
province must therefore be approached
with some reserve until the Census of
1931 provides the oportunity of testing
their results over the last decade. The
decrease of population in Hooghly and
Jessore districts continued; but there
was an excess of births over deaths in
twenty-two districts in the province.
There was a check in the progressive
decrease of infantile mortality which
has been a feature of the vital statistics
in recent years. This figure which had
fallen from 228.3 per 1,000 in 1919 to
178 per 1,000 in 1927 remained practi-
cally stationary in 1928 (178.1 per
1,000).
The Calcutta Corporation and the
Dacca Maternity and Child-welfare
Trust continued to give special attention
to midwifery and to the care of infant
life with excellent results. In Calcutta
7 maternity units were at work in charge
of 5 Lady Health Visitors assisted by 22
nurses, against 5 in 1927. They
attended 6,541 cases as compared with
4.748 in the preceding year and the death
rate during the first ten days of infancy
among the cases attended excluding still-
births, was only 19.2 per mille as against
35.5 per mille in 1927, while the
general mortality rate within the first
week of infancy in the city was 116.9
per mille. In Dacca two maternity
centres worked as before during the year
and of 4,318 births registered in the
city 1,381 were attended to by the centre
staff. The rate of reported mortality
within 10 days of infancy among the