Improvement in death registrations need not mean a rise in total number of deaths

How much of the increase in number of registered deaths in 2020 is a result of Covid-19 and how much of it is due to factors such as better registration and an increase in population? The latter is a factor because it acts as a base for a given death rate in any country. Past data can offer some insights here. Death registrations, as per the estimates given in the CRS, have improved significantly in India over the last decade. The CRS makes this estimate by using data from the Sample Registration System (SRS), which is published by the same agency which releases the CRS. Unlike the CRS, the SRS is based on a state-level representative survey.

A comparison of number of estimated (not registered) deaths from the CRS reports and share of registered deaths in total deaths shows that the former has not increased as much as the latter. In fact, the number of estimated deaths has been falling continuously since 2013. This is basically a result of an increase in life expectancy as seen in falling crude death rate (CDR) levels. The CDR is the number of deaths per thousand people and its estimates are published by the SRS. A falling CDR is a common phenomenon as countries make economic progress.

But there is a caveat here: the pandemic made people tardy about registering births (as indicated in the 2020 numbers in the CRS), and it might have done the same thing about deaths too, perhaps reversing trend of increasing registrations (with the fact that the number went up despite this pointing to the impact of the pandemic).