Punjab, HP among top five states on Niti’s health index

NEW DELHI: Uttar Pradesh fared the worst among 21 states on an outcomes-based comprehensive health index prepared for the first time by the federal think tank Niti Aayog, which ranked Kerala, Punjab and Tamil Nadu in the top three.

The performance report based — Healthy States, Progressive India – was released on Friday by officials of Niti Aayog, the health ministry and the World Bank.

The think tank’s CEO Amitabh Kant said they will also announce a ranking of India’s 730 district hospitals in June.

“We want to reward the performers and name and shame those who are not performing,” he added. Among smaller states, ranked separately, Mizoram got the top rank, followed by Manipur and then Goa. Lakshadweep recorded the best overall performance among Union Territories, followed by Chandigarh and Delhi.

The government has decided to double the financial incentive of 10% on National Health Mission allocations for states that perform well, health secretary Preeti Sudan announced at the launch of the report.

“Prior to 2014, there was no system to grade community health centres. Once we started incentivising performance, everyone notified free drugs in the public health facilities,” Sudan said, adding that number of Community Health Centres with a minimum three-star rating had gone up from 716 out of 5,390 to 3,186.