Nagaland recorded lowest accidental deaths in India during 2019

Our Reporter
Dimapur, Sep. 7 (EMN): The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) recently released its sixth edition of ‘Accidents in India’ report after a comprehensive revision of the data collection of ‘accidental deaths and suicides in India’ in 2014 in consultation with states/UTs, police and other stakeholders.

For statistical purpose, ‘accidental deaths’ have been classified as deaths that could be due to forces/factors of the nature which have been again categorised as ‘accidental deaths due to forces of nature’ or could be due to deliberate or negligent conduct of human beings, classified as ‘other causes of accidental deaths’.

As per the NCRB report, the rate of accidental deaths (per lakh population) has slightly increased in 2019 as compared to 2018. The total number of accidental deaths in 2019 was 4,21,104. Out of the total accidental deaths, 8,145 (1.9%) deaths were due to forces of nature and 4,12,959 (98.1%) deaths were due to other causes.

There was an increase of 18.2% (from 6,891 deaths to 8,145 deaths) in deaths due to forces of nature and increase of 2% (from 4,04,933 deaths to 4,12,959 deaths) in deaths due to other causes during 2019 as compared to 2018.

Maharashtra with a population share of 9.2% has reported the highest number of accidental deaths (70,329), contributing nearly one-sixth (16.7%) of total accidental deaths reported in the country during 2015-19. Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in the country with a population share of 16.9% has accounted for 9.6% of the total accidental deaths in the country.

The number of accidental deaths increased by 2.3% at national level during 2019 compared to 2018. Nagaland and Lakshadweep recorded the lowest accidental deaths due to other causes in the country with 63 in Nagaland and 5 in Lakshadweep. Out of 8,145 accidental deaths due to forces of nature Nagaland, Puducherry, Daman and Diu and Lakshadweep recorded zero deaths during 2019 as per the report.

Nagaland reported a decline of 26.7% in total accidental deaths in the year 2019 as compared to 2018, followed by Dadar and Nagar Haveli (23.9%), Arunachal Pradesh (18.9%) and Lakshadweep (16.7%).

In the state and UT-wise rate of accidental deaths during 2019, Nagaland recorded the lowest with 2.9% and Lakshadweep at 7.4% respectively.

Gender-wise analysis revealed that females and males constitute 19.2% and 80.8% of total victims respectively. Age group of the majority of the victims was between 30 to 45 years. This group of people has accounted for 30.9% of all persons killed in accidents in the country during the year 2019. A total of 46,697 senior citizens (60 years and above of age) have also been killed in various accidents during 2019, accounting for 11.1%.