As per Office of Registrar General of India SRS reports, the Infant mortality rate has declined from 50 per 1000 live births in 2009 to 42 per 1000 live births in 2012.

Under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) the following programmes/schemes and awareness campaign is launched by the Government to reduce infant mortality rate:

i)                   Establishment of Sick New Born Care Units at District Hospitals, newborn stabilization Units at Community Health Centres (CHCs) and New Born Care corners at 24x7 Primary Health Centres (PHCs) to provide new born and child care services.

ii)                Navjaat Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (NSSK), a programme for training health care providers on essential newborn care and resuscitation.

iii)              Home Based New Born Care (HBNC) through ASHAs with series of home visits.

iv)              Integrated Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illness (IMNCI) and Facility Based Integrate Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illnesses (F-IMNCI).

v)                Early identification and appropriate management of Diarrhoea disease and Acute Respiratory Infections.

vi)              Improving Infant and young child feeding practices including breastfeeding promotion.

vii)           Immunisation against seven vaccine preventable diseases.

viii)         Vitamin A supplementation and Iron and Folic Acid supplementation;

ix)              Establishment of Nutritional Rehabilitation Centres to address severe and acute malnutrition.

x)                Promotion of institutional deliveries through JananiSurakshaYojana (JSY);

xi)              Capacity building of health care providers in basic and comprehensive obstetric care;  

xii)           Operationalization of sub-centres, Primary Health Centres, Community Health Centres and District Hospitals for providing 24x7 basic and comprehensive obstetric care services;

xiii)         Name based web enabled tracking of pregnant women to ensure antenatal, intra-natal and postnatal care.

xiv)         Mother and Child Protection Card in collaboration with the Ministry of Women and Child Development to monitor service delivery for mothers and children.

xv)           Antenatal, Intra-natal and Postnatal care including Iron and Folic Acid supplementation to pregnant & lactating women for prevention and treatment of anaemia.

xvi)         Engagement of more than 8.8lakhs Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) to generate demand and facilitate accessing of health care services by the community.

xvii)      Village Health and Nutrition Days in rural areas as an outreach activity, for provision of maternal and child health services.

xviii)    Health and nutrition education to promote dietary diversification, inclusion of iron and foliate rich food as well as food items that promote iron absorption.  

xix)         Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakaram (JSSK) has been launched on 1st June, 2011, which entitles all pregnant women delivering in public health institutions to absolutely free and no expense delivery including Caesarean section.  The initiative stipulates free drugs, diagnostics, blood and diet, besides free transport from home to institution, between facilities in case of a referral and drop back home.  Similar entitlements have been put in place for all sick infants accessing public health institutions for treatment. 

xx)           Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK), an introduction of child health screening for 4Ds i.e. defects at birth, deficiencies, diseases, development delays and their management among the children 0-18 years of age.

States/UTs wise IMR over past three years is as follows:

States/UTs wise IMR during last 3 years

This was stated by Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha today.

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MV/GM