Current status of national rural health mission

Health is a fundamental human right and it is the responsibility of the government to provide health care to all people in equal proportions. Ever since Indias independence in 1947 various national health schemes and programs have been launched with the view to improve the health status of people living in rural areas. It is not almost 2 years since the Government of India launched the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM on 12th of April 2005. The aim of the NRHM is to bring about dramatic improvement in the health system and the health status of the people especially those who live in rural areas of the country. The Mission seeks to provide universal access to equitable affordable and quality health care as well as to bring about an improvement in the health status of the underprivileged sections of the society especially women and children. Although the NRHM aims to cover all the states - namely Arunachal Pradesh Assam Bihar Chhattisgarh Himachal Pradesh Jharkhand Jammu and Kashmir Manipur Mizoram Meghalaya Madhya Pradesh Nagaland Orissa Rajasthan Sikkim Tripura Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh. The government has embarked an outlay of Rs. 8207 crores for 2006-2007 in comparison to Rs. 6553 crores in the previous year. The budget for 2007-2008 is likely to be increased to Rs. 10500 crores. The present article aims to explore the current status of implementation and progress of activities as envisaged under NRHM in the highly-focus states of the country that are under priority as well as non-priority states. Following actions have been taken under NRHM. (excerpt)