Performance of ‘Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY)’ in Udaipur District of Rajasthan

Abstract

Maternal health is crucial for a healthy family, a healthy society and a healthy nation. Poor maternal health has been a major issue of concern both at the global and national levels and many initiatives have been taken to improve it. It was one of the targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). ‘Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) was launched in India in 2005 to reduce the maternal mortality ratio (MMR) by increasing institutional deliveries so that women can have better ante-natal and post-natal care with cash incentives. It is necessary to assess how this scheme has contributed to improvising maternal health parameters, especially in the low-performing areas at the time of its implementation. Thus, this paper tries to analyse the performance of JSY in the Udaipur district of Rajasthan which is majorly a tribal area and poor performing district of the poorly performing state in this regard and compare it with the state performance. For this purpose, the achievements of the five parameters related to maternal health and JSY, i.e., antenatal registration within 12 weeks, at least three antenatal check-ups, institutional deliveries, JSY beneficiaries and immunization were analysed for Udaipur and Rajasthan with the help of secondary data collected from Directorate of Medical, Health & Family Welfare Services, Jaipur from the year 2008-09 to 2018-19. The composite performance index of JSY was also computed and compared to summarise its performance at both levels. It is concluded that the performance of JSY has improved in Udaipur and Rajasthan during the study period. Still, both are far from achieving the targets of JSY, especially of 100 per cent institutional delivery, and have to put in extra efforts to achieve them.