Role of National Rural Health Mission in Promoting Institutional Delivery Services in Rural Uttar Pradesh, India: An Assessment of ‘Janani Suraksha Yojana’

Under the National Rural Health Mission, Government of India introduced an ambitious scheme of Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) in the year of 2005. This scheme seeks to reduce maternal and neo-natal mortality by promoting institutional delivery services, by providing a cash incentive to mothers who deliver in health facilities. JSY has promoted the utilization of institutional delivery services. Institutional deliveries increased from 14.1 percent (2002-2004) to 33.2 percent (2007-2008) to 65.0 percent (2010) in the study area. This paper presents an assessment of JSY in terms of awareness of the scheme, increase in institutional deliveries, JSY beneficiaries by background characteristics, place of delivery (public/private health facility), type of delivery (normal/c-section/episiotomy) distance and use of transport, payment of cash-incentives and quality of delivery services provided under the scheme in rural Uttar Pradesh. This paper investigates the shortcoming of JSY like non/delay-payment of cash-incentives, poor quality of care and treatment provided to beneficiaries. Based on findings suggestions have been given to emphasize on ‘quality’ of delivery and post-delivery services and not merely on ‘quantity’ of institutional deliveries in order to achieve JSY and MDG-5 objectives.