Centre issued penalty on 14 states and UTs for not performing on various health parameters:

The government has imposed a penalty on 14 states and union territories (UTs) under National Health Mission for not performing on various health parameters in 2018-19. The penalty was imposed under a special initiative run by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare based on result-based funding. This move by the centre aimed to instill a sense of healthy competition amongst the states and stimulate better health outcomes across the country.

National Health Mission:

According to the National Health Mission, 80% of the fund for the State would be assuredly available and the rest 20% of the resource envelope fund would depend on State’s performance on agreed conditionalities.

States including West Bengal, J&K, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Bihar and Nagaland were penalized as they did not achieve the set benchmarks.

National Health Mission performance index:

According to the Health System Strengthening Conditionality Report of states 2018-19 released on 10 October. UTs and States namely Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Haryana, Assam, Kerala, and Punjab were among the top five states that performed well on various health system strengthening parameters of the National Health Mission (NHM) and will receive incentives. As per the list Bihar, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, and Mizoram ranked as the bottom performers.