At least 34 births and 10 deaths are registered in the country every minute, a census body has revealed on Thursday. According to the Registrar General of India, a mind boggling 49,481 births and 14,475 deaths are registered in the country every day but the figure accounts for less than 70 per cent of the actual data.

It also revealed that even though registration of births is an universal right of the child under a UN Convention, to which India is a signatory, the current level of registration is 68 per cent. The death registration in the country stood at 63 per cent of the actual.

While states like Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh [Images] have made considerable improvement in the last four years, Uttar Pradesh [Images] and Bihar lagged behind, Registrar General of India D K Sikri told a national conference of chief registrars of births and deaths.

Presenting the statistics at the two day meet, Sikri said the National Population Policy 2000 has mandated 100 percent level of registration of deaths and births by 2010. He said the total number of  registration units in the country was 2.55 lakh in which 18.6 million births and 5.28 million deaths were registered during 2006.

Other major issues which be deliberated tomorrow, the concluding day of the two-day conference, is entry of names of parents of babies born through Assisted Reproductive Technology in the births records and legal validity of electronically generated birth and death certificates under the RBD Act, 1969.

During the conference today, Kerala [Images] was awarded the first prize among the highly populated states and Tamil Nadu bagged second prize for their commendable performance in keeping a proper record of births and deaths. In the medium-populated states, Delhi [Images] was adjudged first and Himachal Pradesh [Images] second whereas Puducherry bagged the first prize and Chandigarh second prize among small states and Union Territories.