Assam ranks 12th in NITI Ayog Health Index

Assam has successfully secured the 12th position among the larger states in terms of overall health performance with a score of 47.74 according to the fourth State Health Index 2019-20 that was launched by NITI Aayog, Assam.

This time Assam moved up from the 15th position to the 12th position. This time, it has made the second-highest incremental rise of 4.34%.

Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana showed the best performances in the field of health. While among the Union Territories, Delhi and Jammu-Kashmir got bottom rankings in terms of overall performance.

Arunachal Pradesh dropped by one place to seventh in the overall health performance among the other smaller states, according to the 4th health index released by the NITI Aayog. Along with Arunachal, Manipur also failed to show any good results.

On the other hand, Mizoram emerged as the best performer, while Nagaland got the bottom rank.

The report was released jointly by NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar, CEO Amitabh Kant, Additional Secretary Dr Rakesh Sarwal, and World Bank Senior Health Specialist Sheena Chhabra.

Even Goa slipped down from the fourth to the second position. The health index scores for the base year (2018-19) and the reference year (2019-20) revealed wide disparities in overall performance across the smaller states.

The state health index is an annual tool to assess the performance of states and UTs. It is a weighted composite index based on 24 indicators grouped under the domains of health outcomes, governance and information, and key inputs/processes.

It was last Monday when the NITI Aayog released a report of the fourth edition of the state health index for 2019-20 titled 'Healthy States, progressive India', which ranks states and union territories on their year-on-year incremental performance in health outcomes as well as their overall status.

This was the 4th round of the report published and it focused on measuring and highlighting the overall performance and incremental improvement of states and UTs over the period 2018-19 to 2019-20.

The report was released jointly by NITI Aayog Vice-Chairman Dr Rajiv Kumar, CEO Amitabh Kant, Additional Secretary Dr Rakesh Sarwal, and World Bank Senior Health Specialist Sheena Chhabra.

The report has been developed by the NITI Aayog, with technical assistance from the World Bank, and in close consultation with the ministry of health & family welfare.