communicable diseases are still a major cause of deaths in India.

The data, released by the office of the Census
Commissioner, reveals that one in two deaths in the country, estimated in the
period 2010-13, are due to non-communicable
or lifestyle diseases. However, for urban areas, NCDs account for nearly
60 per cent of deaths. Communicable diseases in the top
10 include lower respiratory tract diseases like bronchitis and pneumonia,
diarrhea, TB and diseases occurring to prematurely born babies. Road injuries
are the tenth most prevalent cause of death. Together, these 10 make up 60 per
cent of the 10.3 million deaths in India every year. The
top 10 causes of deaths in India have remained the same since 2004-06, with a
slight change in order.

As such, one can draw the
conclusion that India at present faces a combination ofcommunicable diseases
and non-communicable, with the burden of chronic diseases has exceeded that of
communicable diseases. Projections nevertheless indicate that communicable
diseases will still occupy a critically important position up to 2020.

India's position in
the middle of the transition from a poor, healthcare-deficient country to an
advanced country is brought out starkly when compared with examples from other
countries. InNiger,
one of the poorest countries in the world, with a per capita gross domestic
product less than one-fifth of India's, eight of the top ten causes of death
are communicable diseases. At the other extreme, Norway, with per capita gross
domestic product over ten times that of India, has just one communicable
disease — lower respiratory tract infections — among its top ten, with the
other nine being non-communicable diseases.

China, which
started off from conditions similar to India, has moved much