Agartala: Tripura and Mizoram have emerged as front runners’ in the smaller states category, according to the 2019-20 composite index score of the state health index announced by NITI Aayog.
Healthy States Progressive India’ a report on the ranks of states and union territories on health index, developed by Niti Ayog with technical assistance from World Bank in consultation with the ministry of health and family welfare, was released on Monday.
While Mizoram topped the list with its 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.
Based on the composite index score range for the reference year (2019-20), the states are categorised into three categories – aspirants, achievers and frontrunners.
Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, and Nagaland are categorised as aspirants, Goa and Sikkim as achievers and Mizoram and Tripura are categorised as front runners in the NITI Aayog report.
Among the smaller states, Mizoram and Meghalaya secured the 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 smaller states with half of the states recording improvement.
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 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 on Monday hailed the state success. He posted 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.