State receives Rs 14 crore so far

60,000 women benifitted under JSY in J&K, claims Govt.

Tahir Mushtaq

JAMMU, June 27: The state government has claimed that the scheme Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) launched in 2011 in Jammu and Kashmir has benefitted around 60 thousand women and 15 thousand newly born children.

According to the officials keeping in view the high maternal and infant mortality rate in the country, the centre government launched this scheme about a year ago to provide free services to pregnant women for deliveries and neo-natal care.

The facility is available to all the women both district and sub-district hospitals besides every health centres in the state.

Officials disclosed that the scheme has been launched in view of the difficulty being faced by pregnant women and parents of sick newborns along with high out-of-pocket expenses incurred by them on delivery and treatment besides provided the women an amount of Rs 1400.

“The scheme, drafted after all states approved of it, will provide free services to pregnant women, including normal deliveries and caesarean operations and treatment to sick new borns in government hospitals, community health centres and primary health centres” they added.

The present initiative supplements the cash assistance given to pregnant women under the Janani Suraksha Yojana and is aimed to mitigate the burden of out-of-pocket expenses incurred by the families.

When contacted Director National Rural Health Mission, Jammu Dr Yash Pal Shamra till date the centre has approved and sanctioned around 14 crore rupees for the scheme.  Dr Shamra further said that the department has an increase of 85 percent patients within a year.

Despite tall claims of Government about improvement in the health sector, Jammu and Kashmir has Neo Natal Mortality Rate (NMR) of 37 per cent, much higher than the national average of 34 per cent.

Official data saya that the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) in the state is 43 per cent much higher than the neighboring states of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh. While studying the IMR level of 2010 with the previous year, it comes to fore that at the country level, it fell 3 points, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab recorded a fall of IMR by 5 and 4 points respectively between 2009-10 while the Jammu and Kashmir recorded a decrease of only 2 points during the reference period.

Surprisingly Jammu and Kashmir has so far not conducted Material Mortality Ratio survey, an important indicator of the pregnant women. Though the government has said that a survey is being conducted by Directorate of Economics and Statistics, but so far it has not been submitted to the government.