Newsletter Nov. 2024

Bihar’s Directorate of Economics and Statistics (DES), together with UNICEF and ESCAP, organized a 2-day inception workshop to launch the CRVS Business Process Improvement (BPI) project in Patna, India from 15 to 16 November 2024. Over 40 CRVS stakeholders covering many of the 38 districts in the State of Bihar participated in the workshop including representatives from the Directorate of Economics and Statistics, Department of Planning and Development, Directorate of Census Operations, the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India and representatives of several public and private hospitals based in both urban and rural districts.  The workshop was opened by Mr. K. Senthil Kumar, Principal Secretary, Department of Planning and Development, Mr. Prawin Kumar, Deputy Director of DES and Deputy Chief Registrar and Mr. M. Ramachandrudu, Director of Census Operations.

During this participatory workshop, stakeholders documented and mapped out current birth and death registration processes for vital events occurring at home/in the community, in government hospitals and at private hospitals, including the sub-processes that occur at different facilities.  This was followed by in-depth discussions to identify the bottlenecks and performance issues affecting the current functioning of the CRVS system in Bihar, with the aim of strengthening the system and improving the quality of data collected and the use of this information for evidence-based decision-making. Over the next two months, stakeholders will be consulted to validate the outcomes from the workshop, before convening for a consultation and capacity building workshop in early 2025 to develop improvement policies and redesigned processes.  

Read more about this project here.