Many go for ‘safe motherhood’ plan, figures look up

While one woman dies every minute around the globe, in India, one woman dies in every five minutes.

While one woman dies every minute around the globe, in India, one woman dies in every five minutes. Statistics revealed by the Health Ministry show that our mothers are ‘safe and sound’ owing to the increase in number of institutional deliveries under the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) in the last two years.

If six lakh women in the country utilised the cash incentives to undergo an institutional delivery in 2005-06, then the figure increased five-fold in 2006-2007. As per the Health Ministry’s first quarterly results for the year, as many as 30 lakh women benefited from the JSY. Already Rs 60 crore has been spent in the first six months and over seven lakh women have had institutional deliveries.

The JSY facilitates safe motherhood intervention under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). Launched in 2005, the scheme aims at increasing institutional deliveries to reduce maternal and neo-natal mortality among the pregnant women living in poverty. The maternal mortality rate is around 300 per one lakh live births in the country.

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According to highly placed officials with the NRHM in New Delhi, the demand was so phenomenal in 2006-07 that the budgetary outlay was increased from Rs 147 crore to Rs 260 crore and at least 73 per cent deliveries in the country were performed at medical institutions.

The scheme integrates cash assistance with delivery and post-delivery care. The scheme focuses on impoverished pregnant woman with special dispensation for states having low institutional delivery rates in UP, Uttaranchal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Rajasthan, Orissa and Jammu and Kashmir. While these states have been named as Low Performing States (LPS), the remaining states have been termed as High Performing States (HPS).

Officials say, it is the low performing states which have seen a huge chunk of beneficiaries. Last year, 17 lakh poor women have availed of the cash incentives under the scheme. The poor woman is given Rs 1,400 in the LPS while the amount is Rs 700 in the HPS.