Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram, the new initiative of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare

About 56,000 women in India die every year due to pregnancy related complications. Similarly, every year more than 13 lacs infants die within 1year of the birth and out of these approximately 9 lacs i.e. 2/3rd of the infant deaths take place within the first four weeks of life. Out of these, approximately 7 lacs i.e. 75% of the deaths take place within a week of the birth and a majority of these occur in the first two days after birth.
In order to reduce the maternal and infant mortality, Reproductive and Child Health Programme under the National Rural health Mission (NRHM) is being implemented to promote institutional deliveries so that skilled attendance at birth is available and women and new born can be saved from pregnancy related deaths.
Several initiatives have been launched by the Ministry of health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) including Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) a key intervention that has resulted in phenomenal growth in institutional deliveries. More than one crore women are benefitting from the scheme annually and the outlay for JSY has exceeded 1600 crores per year.

Key features of the scheme:

• The initiative entitles all pregnant women delivering in public health institutions to absolutely free and no expense delivery, including caesarean section.
• The entitlements include free drugs and consumables, free diet up to 3 days during normal delivery and up to 7 days for C-section, free diagnostics, and free blood wherever required. This initiative also provides for 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 newborns accessing public health institutions for treatment till 30 days after birth.
• The scheme aims to eliminate out of pocket expenses incurred by the pregnant women and sick new borns while accessing services at Government health facilities.
• The scheme is estimated to benefit more than 12 million pregnant women who access Government health facilities for their delivery. Moreover it will motivate those who still choose to deliver at their homes to opt for institutional deliveries.
• All the States and UTs have initiated implementation of the scheme.