Assam scores in Niti Aayog’s health index

Assam has scored in the NITI Aayog's Annual Health Indexreport registering fifth highest growth in the health sector and moving onenotch up in the overall ranking from 15^th to 16^th.

The report was released yesterday, which says  that Haryana, Rajasthan and Jharkhand showedthe maximum improvement of health outcomes. However in the overall ranking, whileKerala remains the healthiest State in India, Uttar Pradesh remains the mostunhealthy, said NITI Aayog as it released the second edition of its StateHealth Index.

Some States such as Rajasthan have improved their healthstatus, but what is worrisome is that States such as Madhya Pradesh, Odisha,Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have not improved at all, it said.

The index analyses overall performance and incrementalimprovement in the States and the Union Territories for the period with 2015-16as the base year and 2017-18 as the reference year.

The report focuses on measuring and highlighting the overallperformance and incremental improvement. It shows which states are leadingIndia's health development and which states have failed to hit their targets.

Health index is an annual systematic tool to focus theattention of the states on achieving better health outcomes.

Assam has gained significant improvement in healthcare with4.8 incremental change. Assam's incremental change rank has improved to 5 fromthe reference year rank 21. Congratulating this,Dr. Himanta Biswa Sarma twitted, "Heartening to find Assam registering significantgains in healthcare delivery as per latest @NITIAayog Health Index of States.Assam became one of the most improved states in health with 4.8 pointsincrease. Since 2018, our overall rank improved from 16 to 15 amongst largestates."

Performance of theother seven states of North east-