Sex Disaggregated Death Data

[Maria Wani]

Hi all,

I'm collecting district-level and state-level dataset of registered deaths in India. I've got solid continuous national CRS coverage at the district level from 2009 onward, plus scattered state-level pre-2009 coverage for Maharashtra, Kerala, Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Orissa (mostly pulled from state "Statistical Abstract" series and Directorate of Economics & Statistics annual reports).

Where I'm stuck: I need pre-2009 coverage, preferably as far back as possible.

What I've already checked and ruled out:

- National CRS/ORGI annual reports before 2009 — these exist bibliographically back to 1963-64 (confirmed via GHDx and the WHO SEARO library catalog) but I can't find them digitized or hosted anywhere: not on dc.crsorgi.gov.in, not on censusindia.gov.in's NADA catalog, not on HathiTrust, not on Internet Archive.
- Archive.org's Digital Library of India collection (dli.ministry.*) — worked well for Maharashtra/Haryana-type "Statistical Abstract" series, but the UP, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, and Tripura editions I checked either don't exist for the right years or structurally lack a district-wise registered-deaths table (they cover hospital infrastructure and SRS-estimated rates instead of actual CRS registration counts).
- Each state's own Directorate of Economics & Statistics site, live and via the Wayback Machine. Bihar's DES site actually has a nice CRS archive, but it only goes back to 2010. MP's DES site lists a report called "Annual Vital Statistics-2006" (twenty tables, explicitly CRS-based — exactly what I need) in an old publication catalog, but there's no link to it anywhere, archived or live.

So my question for the group: does anyone know of a digitized archive, a state statistical library, a personal collection, or a different search strategy for pre-2009 district-wise registered births/deaths data? I'd also be curious whether anyone has done similar historical and hit the same wall — or found a way around it (RTI requests to state Chief Registrar offices? university/NGO archives? physical visits to state DES libraries?).

I am also outside of India, which seems to be making things worse. An India VPN is not helping me access certain websites.

Regards,

Maria Wani