Step 1: General fertility rate measures childbearing intensity by counting live births in a year against every 1000 women of reproductive age, taken as 15 to 49 years.
Step 2: Because it uses only women who can bear children as the denominator, it is more accurate than the crude birth rate, which divides by the whole population.
Step 3: The figure quoted for India in this era is roughly 84 per 1000 women aged 15 to 49 years, reflecting the long-term decline in fertility.
Step 4: The remaining options of 118, 128 and 138 overstate the current rate and correspond to much earlier, higher-fertility periods, so they are rejected.
\[\boxed{84}\]