The Union Health Ministry may be patting its back for the success of the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) launched in 2007 for the welfare of poor pregnant women across the country, but a study published in its own inhouse journal has suggested that much needs to be done for creating awareness and utilisation of the central scheme in the urban slum population.
The study which was conducted in Delhi’s two districts — East and North-East — to identify the reach of the scheme, has been published in the latest issue of the Indian Journal of Medical Research (IJMR) of the Health Research Wing of the Ministry.
A conditional cash transfer scheme, the JSY has been introduced to improve the institutional delivery rates and thereby reduce the maternal and infant mortality. But the study reveals that much yet to be done to reach out to the beneficiaries.
They had had interviewed 469 mothers of which 71 per cent had institutional delivery. Of these, just 27.3 per cent had benefited from the JSY scheme such as free transportation from the home to hospital while a meagre 14.5 per cent had received cash benefits.
Moreover, those from Hindu religion and having had more than six antenatal check-ups were the top gainers, noted researchers Vikram K, AK Sharma and AT Kannan from Department of Community Medicine, University College of Medical Sciences and Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital. They attribute this to low level of awareness about the scheme launched under the National Rural Health Mission.
“Just 62.3 per cent (292) were aware of the scheme, of which 72 per cent (211) were not aware if they were eligible for monetary benefits under the scheme,” says the study.
Only 7.5 per cent of the women residing in slums and resettlement colonies had proof that they belonged to SC, ST or BPl category. “Majority of women (68 per cent) came to know about the scheme during the antenatal period and place of Antenatal Centre (51.7 per cent). The place of delivery acted as the major sources of information about JSY with ASHA acting as the third major source.
The researchers also noted that the criteria for distributing cash incentive for JSY was not strictly followed in all hospitals in the two districts as five women from North East and six from East district had received cash incentives despite having two or more children.
Also, says the study, although the scheme has shown an increasing trend in terms of expenditure under the programme and number of beneficiaries receiving cash benefits, there has been no detailed evaluation of the scheme since its introduction in an urban setting like Delhi.