XI Five Year Plan 2007-2012 - Public Health & Family Welfare ...

5. Priorities and Thrust Areas
The National Rural Health Mission seeks to provide effective health care to the entire
rural population in the country with special focus on 18 states which have weak public
health indicators. The Mission is an articulation of the commitment of the Government
to raise public spending on Health from 0.9% of GDP to 2-3% of GDP, over the next 5
years.
• It aims to undertake architectural correction of the health system to enable it to
effectively handle increased allocations in health sector. It has as its key
components provision of a health activist in each village; a village health plan
prepared through a local team headed by the Panchayat representative;
strengthening of the rural hospital for effective curative care and made
measurable through Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS), accountable to the
community; integration of vertical Health & Family Welfare Programmes and
Funds for optimal utilization of funds and infrastructure and strengthening
delivery of primary healthcare.
• Effective integration of health concerns with determinants of health like
sanitation & hygiene, nutrition, and safe drinking water through a District Plan
for Health.
• Ddecentralization of the programme for district management of health.
• Above all, it seeks to improve access of rural people, especially poor women
and children, to equitable, affordable, accountable and effective primary
healthcare.
The biggest concern for the State in the health sector is poor health indicators
like Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) & Total Fertility Rate
(TFR). The IMR of the state has been 87 at the beginning of the X five-year plan that
has come down to 79 in 2004. Thus while there has been an improvement over the
last four years, the pace of improvement is agonizingly slow. The MMR & TFR is also
very high in the state though recent estimates are not available. The latest estimates
suggest an MMR of 498 per lakh (1999) and TFR of 3.8 (2003).