NEW DELHI: In a major health sector initiative, India will launch the Rashtriya Swasthya Vikas Yojna, a nationwide healthcare program that the government hopes will help the country improve its health parameters. The program replaces the National Rural Health Mission, which has served the country for the last five years. The Yojna is part of the 12th 5-year Plan, which comes into effect from today, April 2, and is expected to pump nearly 2.5 percent of the country's total spending in the next five years towards the health sector. The program aims to target public spending in those states with poor health parameters but, unlike its predecessor, but will not be limited to these areas. “There have been several faults in NRHM, the biggest being the limited flexibility given to states to devise their own strategies and policies. The new program will seek to change that, by giving states all the freedom,” a senior official said. The program also increases the state's responsibility and sets out guidelines for states to draw up programs for spending. The new Yojna will be use a framework of the successful Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, an initiative of the Agriculture ministry, which helped raise, India's food grain output by almost 15 percent in the 11th five-year Plan (2007-12). India was ranked worse than other developing countries like Brazil and China, in health parameters like infant mortality rate, and proportion of women receiving ante-natal care. India has also been spending less on public health and government, while targeting an 8 percent growth in public spending on health, ended up with only a growth of Rs 4.5 percent in 2009-10.
