\Prime minister Manmohan Singh on Friday acknowledged that UPA government’s National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), presently known National Health Mission (NHM) did not yield desired results. “Scheme like NRHM were the areas where we could have done far better,” said Singh when asked about the things his government couldn’t do well in its tenure of almost one decade.
NRHM was initiated in 2005 by the Congress-led government to improve the health infrastructure and mechanism in rural India which would subsequently result in betterment in basic health indicators like infant mortality rate (IMR), mother mortality rate (MMR), total fertility rate (TFR), institutional delivery and immunization. But despite the budget being tripled from Rs10,040 crore in 2005-06 to 30,456 crore in 2011-12, not a single target was met.
The targets were: IMR to be brought down to 30 deaths per 1,000 infants by 2012, MMR to be brought down to 100 deaths per one lakh live births by 2012, TFR to be brought down to 2.1 till 2012, institutional deliveries to be increased by 80 % by 2012 and 100 immunization in the country. But none of the targets have been met.
At present, IMR is 42 deaths per 1000 live births. Jharkhand sees death of 50 children per 1000 whereas this rate of around 45 in Assam. In Maharashtra, IMR is 25 death per thousand newborns. MMR is 178 against 100, the target set by government. TFR rate is 2.4 and not 2.1.
Similarly one of out of every four births in the country still take place at home under the supervision of untrained midwife. India has around 23,800 (as per 2011 data) Primary Health Centres (PHCs) and around 1100 of these PHCs don’t have doctors.
Infact, Chhatishgarh has 243 out of total 741 Primary Health Centres (PHC) where there is no doctor available. Availability of doctors in rural India is a big issue. In India, the doctor-patient ratio is 1:1700. Around 70% and 37% of these PHCs do not have power and water connections.
It’s not that NRHM hasn’t created any infrastructure at all. In last eight years, 93 district hospitals (DH), 526 Community Health Centres (CHCs), 1,498 PHCs and 16,447 sub-health centres (SCs) have been taken up for construction. Out of these the construction work of 34 DH, 227 CHCs, 770 PHCs and 7,568 SCs have been completed.
Similarly, human resources has also seen an increase.
Unmet goals
The targets were: IMR to bring down to 30 deaths per 1,000 infants by 2012, MMR to be brought down to 100 deaths per one lakh live births by 2012, TFR to be brought down to 2.1 till 2012, institutional deliveries to be increased by 80 % by 2012 and 100 immunization in the country. But none of the targets have been met.
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