New Delhi, June 8 -- Certain health indicators found missing in the recently released National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-6 fact sheet are a result of the government's efforts toward data harmonisation, according to people familiar with the matter. The fact sheets are designed to present the most policy-relevant headline findings while supporting efforts to streamline reporting across India's growing network of specialised surveys and administrative databases, they said. On reports regarding the absence of certain indicators, a senior official in the ministry of health and family welfare said, "The objective is to ensure that each indicator is reported through the most appropriate and authoritative source, reducing duplication and improving overall data coherence." The official further said that several indicators cited as missing from the Fact Sheets are already being monitored through dedicated national systems. Sanitation and clean cooking fuel coverage, for instance, are tracked through specialised surveys and administrative platforms such as Swachh Survekshan Grameen and the ministry of statistics and programme implementation's surveys, making duplication within the fact sheets unnecessary. Similarly, key statistics relating to mortality, birth registration and population characteristics continue to be generated through established systems such as the Sample Registration System (SRS), Civil Registration System (CRS) and Census framework, which remain the country's designated sources for these indicators. On anaemia estimates, the official said that haemoglobin testing was not undertaken in NFHS-6 due to concerns surrounding the capillary blood sampling methodology used in previous rounds. Instead, anaemia prevalence estimates will be derived from the Indian Council of Medical Research's Diet and Biomarkers Survey, which employs gold-standard venous blood sampling methods. "Far from narrowing the survey's scope, NFHS-6 has introduced several new indicators into the Fact Sheets, including population composition, elderly population share, financial inclusion, antenatal care utilisation, vaccination coverage, severe diarrhoeal diseaseprevalence and expanded breastfeeding indicators," said the official....