Telangana registers highest maternal mortality rate decline in country

Hyderabad: Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) of India has declined by 7.4 percent from 122/lakh live births in 2015-17 to 113/lakh live births in 2016-18.

Telangana (17 percent decline) has shown the highest decline compared to other States. In fact, it was way above the national decline of over seven percent.

From 76 per lakh live births MMR in 2015-17, Telangana reported 63 MMR per lakh births in 2016-18, a decline of 13 points and in percentage terms it was 17.1.

Also, for the first time Telangana's MMR (63) has gone below 70 mark thus enabling the State to achieve SDG along with other states like Kerala (43), Maharashtra (46), Tamil Nadu (60) and Andhra Pradesh (65).

Maharashtra closely followed Telangana with 16.3 percent decline in MMR.

When it came to points, Rajasthan (22 points) has shown the highest decline in the country. According to Union Health Minister, the success could be attributed to the intensive endeavour of the government in achieving impressive gains in institutional deliveries as well as focusing on quality and coverage of services under NHM through various schemes.

It also said that India was on track to achieving MMR (Maternal Mortality Rate) targets for Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and National Health Police (NHP) target.