About:
- Centrally sponsored scheme
- Objective of reducing maternal and infant mortality by promoting institutional delivery among pregnant women.
- Under the JSY, eligible pregnant women are entitled for cash assistance irrespective of the age of mother and number of children for giving birth in a government or accredited private health facility.
Achievements:
- Beneficiaries under Janani Suraksha Yojana has increased manifold i.e. from 7 lakhs beneficiaries in 2005-06 to 1 crore in 2013-14, indicating high awareness levels among the pregnant women about the scheme.
- About 9 lakh ASHA workers get performance based incentives under JSY for motivating pregnant women to give birth in a health facility by creating awareness about the scheme.
- Further, out of the total beneficiaries reported in 2013-14 large majority (nearly 87%) of JSY beneficiaries are from rural background
Shortcomings:
- In many states women go for institutional delivery for the sake of cash incentives, with very limited real benefits in terms of natal or post-natal care. Need is to create ecosystem of Effective care covering each aspects of child birth.
National Council of Applied Economic Research study:
- JSY has led to reduction of prevalent differences in access to maternal care between individual people of higher or lower socioeconomic status.
- It has led to enhancement in utilisation of health services among all groups especially among the poorer and underserved sections in the rural areas.
- Utilisation of all three maternal healthcare services was remarkably higher among illiterate or less educated and poor women.
- Usage of all three maternal healthcare services by the Dalit, Adivasis, OBC and Muslim women increased between the surveys.
- However, inequalities still exist in access to maternal care but JSY has narrowed gap in access to healthcare between the marginalised group of women and financially better-off.
- Women in their early 20s more likely avail maternal health care services as compared to their older women.
- The incidence of women availing maternal healthcare decreases with the increase in the number of children.