India recorded over 1 crore deaths in 2021 — the second year of the COVID-19 lockdown — which was around 21 lakh deaths more than in 2020, according to two key reports on registered births and deaths published this week by the Registrar General of India (RGI) after a five-year gap.
“In the case of registered deaths, the number of registered events has gone up from 81.2 lakhs in 2020 to 102.2 lakhs in 2021, i.e., an increase of 26.0%,” the report, ‘Vital Statistics of India based on the Civil Registration System for the year 2021’, said.
In 2019, 75.9 lakh deaths were registered.
The other report on the Medical Certification of the Cause of Death 2021, compiled by the RGI, said that deaths with COVID-19 as the underlying cause of death increased from 1,60,618 in 2020 to 4,13,580 in 2021, which included 2,67,363 male, 1,46,215 female, and two transgender fatalities.
In 2021, out of 10,224,506 deaths, as many as 2,395,128 were medically certified deaths, which was 5,83,440 more registered deaths when compared with 2020.
According to the report, a total of 5,74,198 COVID-19 deaths were reported in 2020 and 2021. The COVID-19 dashboard maintained by the Union Ministry of Health says that, as on May 5, the total number of deaths induced by the pandemic stood at 5,33,665.
The report said that among the leading groups of causes, diseases of the circulatory system, including pulmonary ailments, constituted 29.8% of the total number of medically certified deaths, followed by deaths caused by COVID-19 at 17.3%; deaths caused by diseases of the respiratory system at 12.7%; and deaths caused by certain infectious and parasitic diseases at 6.1%.
COVID-19 was the second leading cause of death in 2021; it was the third leading cause of death in 2020.
Among the 32 States and Union Territories, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Punjab, Telangana, Jharkhand, and Delhi contributed significantly to the increased number of deaths registered from 2020 to 2021, the report said.
The number of registered births decreased by about 0.1%, from 242.2 lakh in 2020 to 242.0 lakh in 2021, the Civil Registration System report said.
Published – May 08, 2025 11:42 pm IST
