The National Rural Health Mission’s Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) is a safe motherhood intervention (NHM). It is being adopted to lower maternal and infant mortality by encouraging pregnant women to give birth in a hospital. The system is being implemented in all states and Union Territories (UTs), with a special focus on states that are underperforming (LPS).
In April 2005, the Janani Suraksha Yojana was started by amending the National Maternity Benefit Scheme (NMBS). The National Minimum Wage Act (NMWA) went into force in August 1995 as part of the National Social Assistance Program (NSAP). During the 2001-02 fiscal year, the scheme was transferred from the Ministry of Rural Development to the Department of Health and Family Welfare.
Pregnant women who have reached the age of 19 and live in BPL households are eligible for financial support of Rs. 500 per birth up to two live births under the NMBS. When JSY was launched, the financial help of Rs. 500/-, which was accessible to BPL pregnant women across the country under NMBS, was replaced by a tiered scale of aid based on state classification and whether the beneficiary was from a rural or urban region.
States were classified as Low Performing States (LPS) or the High Performing States (HPS) based on their institutional delivery rate. States with an institutional delivery rate of 25% or less were classified as LPSs, while those with an institutional delivery rate of more than 25% were classified as HPSs (HPS). As a result, eight former EAG states were categorized as the Low Performing States: Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Odisha, and the states of Assam and Jammu & Kashmir. The remaining states were divided into two categories: The high Performing States and the Low Performing States.
JSY’s Background
Every year, over 56,000 Indian women die as a result of pregnancy-related problems. Similarly, every year, over 13 lakh infants die within one year of birth, with nearly two-thirds of these deaths occurring during the first four weeks of life. Approximately 75% of these deaths occur within a week of birth, with the bulk of these occurring in the first two days following birth.
To reduce mother and infant mortality, the National Health Mission (NHM) is implementing the Reproductive and Child Health Program to encourage institutional births so that competent attendance at delivery is available and women and newborns can be saved from pregnancy-related deaths.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has implemented several initiatives, notably the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), a crucial intervention that has resulted in a spectacular increase in institutional deliveries.
Benefits to the target group
The scheme is targeted at impoverished pregnant women in states with low institutional delivery rates, such as Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Rajasthan, Orissa, and Jammu and Kashmir. The remaining states have been designated as High Performing States (HPS), while these states have been designated as Low Performing States (LPS) (HPS).
The program also offers performance-based incentives to ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) women health volunteers who promote institutional delivery among pregnant women.