Front -runner in performance category of NITI Aayog report
Nishikant Khajuria
JAMMU, June 25: Jammu and Kashmir is among the top 10 performing States in terms of overall health performance and annual health incremental performance across the country.
This has been said in a report by the NITI Aayog, which released its second edition of “Healthy States, Progressive India”, ranking States and Union Territories innovatively on their year-on-year incremental change in health outcome as well as their overall performance.
According to the report, prepared in collaboration with the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare with technical assistance from the World Bank, Jammu and Kashmir has been ranked 7th in terms of overall health performance and 9th in incremental performance.
On scoring 62.37 in the reference year 2017-18, J&K has been described as front -runner in the performance category while its incremental performance moderately improved 2.02 on index score from base year 2015-16.
Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra have ranked on top while Gujarat, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh stood at fourth, fifth and sixth spots, respectively in terms of overall health performance. Haryana, Rajasthan and Jharkhand have shown the maximum gains in improvement of health outcomes from base to reference year while Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha were among the worst-performing States on the index.
The ranking was done under three categories — larger States, smaller States and Union Territories (UTs), to ensure comparison among similar entities. The Index is a composite score incorporating 23 indicators such as Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR), Under-five Mortality Rate (U5MR), Proportion Low Birth Weight among New-borns, Proportion of districts with functional Cardiac Care Units (CCUs), Proportion of ANCs registered within first trimester, Proportion of CHCs PHCs with Quality Accreditation Certificates, full immunization coverage, institutional deliveries, Proportion of Specialist positions vacant at District Hospitals and Proportion of total staff (regular and contractual) with e-pay slip generated in the IT enabled Human Resources Management Information System, etc.
As per the report, in terms of overall Indicator performance , Neonatal Mortality Rate in J&K was 18, Under five Mortality Rate (26), Proportion of Low Birth Weight among New-borns (5.48), Sex ration at birth (906), full immunization coverage (100 percent), proportion of institutional deliveries (85.49), treatment success rate of new microbiologically confirmed TB cases (85), proportion of people living on antiretroviral therapy (96.41), average of occupancy of a District Chief Medical Officer (in months) for last three years (13.32), average occupancy of an officer (in months) for 3 key State posts for the last 3 years (8.98); proportion of ANMs positions vacant at Sub Centre (9.44); proportion of Staff Nurses positions vacant at PHCs and CHCs (17.93); proportion of MO positions vacant at PHCs (28.80); proportion of specialist positions vacant at PHCs (25.4); proportion of facilities functional at PHCs (38.40); proportion of districts with functional Cardiac Care Units (31.82); proportion of ANCs registered within first trimester (64.83), level of birth registration (77.60); proportion of CHCs PHCs, HD/SDH with Quality Accreditation Certificates (zero) and average number of days for transfer of Central NHM fund to implementation agency was 137.
Among the larger States, J&K among seven of the top ten States on overall performance also continued to improve on their Health Index scores from the Base Year (2015-16) to the Reference Year (2017-18), while several of the least-performing States further deteriorated, leading to a wider performance gap across Larger States.
Even as there was a general positive correlation between the Health Index scores and the economic development levels of States and UTs as measured by per capita Net State Domestic Product (NSDP), J&K was among a few States with relative low level of economic development, which however performed well in the Health Index.
On the other hand, some States and UTs with relative high level of economic development did not perform as well in Health Index score, such as Goa, Delhi and Sikkim.
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