As per the Health Index Score, 2019-20 announced by the NITI Aayog on Tuesday, Mizoram and Tripura emerged as front runners in the ‘Smaller States’ category.
While Mizoram topped the list with a score of 75.77, Tripura scored 70.16 followed by Sikkim 55.53, Goa 53.68, Meghalaya 43.05, Manipur 34.26, Arunachal Pradesh 33.91 and Nagaland 27.00.
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As per the report, Assam has been announced as the ‘most improved performer’ in the larger state category. Assam Chief Minister Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma has lauded the achievement.
“Our efforts to transform Assam into a developed state have started bearing fruits.
Proud to share that our state has been recognised as the Most Improved performer in @NITIAayog State Health Index, 2019–20.
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With people’s cooperation & hard work, we’ll surely set new milestones,” the Assam Chief Minister tweeted.
Based on the Composite Index Score range for the Reference Year (2019-20), the states have been categorized into three categories- Aspirants, Achievers and Frontrunners.
Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, and Nagaland have been categorized as Aspirants, Goa and Sikkim fall in the category of Achievers and the states of Mizoram and Tripura emerged as Front-runners, as per the NITI Aayog report.
Among the smaller states, Mizoram and Meghalaya secured first and second ranks respectively in terms of Incremental Performance.
The incremental change in Health Index Scores from Base Year (2018-19) to Reference Year (2019-20) varied significantly across the Smaller States with half of the states recording improvement. In addition to Mizoram and Meghalaya, positive incremental change was also observed in Nagaland and Tripura.
Tripura ranked at the top in the Health Outcomes domain performance whereas Nagaland ranked at the bottom.
The Index Score of the best-performing state (Tripura) was more than two and half times of the lowest performer (Nagaland) that recorded the lowest levels in several service delivery indicators such as full immunization, first trimester ANC registration, pregnant women receiving 4 ANCs and institutional delivery.
Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb hailed the success and wrote on Facebook, “Extremely happy to inform that #Tripura along with Mizoram has secured a place in top-ranking ‘Smaller States’ in overall ranking based on the composite index score in 2019–20 by the Niti Aayog. Congratulations to all the people of the state and concerned authorities.”
The Health Index is a useful tool to track the Overall Performance and Incremental Performance of states and UTs and incentivizes states/UTs to focus on outputs and outcomes rather than inputs and budget spends.
In the Northeast, while Mizoram emerged as a strong performer both in terms of Incremental Performance and Overall Performance, Arunachal Pradesh and Manipur emerged as the poor performers in both categories, the report highlighted.