• Abhijit Nath, NET Correspondent, Tripura 

Agartala, December 27, 2021 : NITI Aayog on Monday released the fourth edition of the State Health Index for 2019-20 where Tripura registered the maximum annual incremental progress among ‘Smaller States’ after Mizoram.

The State Health Index is an annual tool to assess the performance of states and UTs. It is a weighted composite index based on 24 indicators grouped under the domains of ‘Health Outcomes’, ‘Governance and Information’, and ‘Key Inputs/Processes’. Each domain has been assigned weights based on its importance with higher scores for outcome indicators.

On overall ranking based on the composite index score in 2019–20, the top-ranking states were Kerala and Tamil Nadu among the ‘Larger States’, Mizoram and Tripura among the ‘Smaller States’, and DH&DD and Chandigarh among the Union Territories.

In the case of Smaller States, the Front-runner states were Mizoram with Index Score of 75.77 and Tripura with Index Score of 70.16. However, in the case of incremental performance from the base year (2018-19) to reference year (2019-20), Tripura is marked to be in ‘Least Improved’ category i.e. 0.01-2.00 while Mizoram is marked as ‘Most Improved’ category with more than 4.00.

Among the Smaller States, Tripura ranked at the top in the Health Outcomes domain performance whereas Nagaland ranked at the bottom. The Index Score of the best-performing state (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.

The vice-chairman of NITI Aayog, Rajiv Kumar said “States are beginning to take cognizance of indices such as the State Health Index and use them in their policymaking and resource allocation. This report is an example of both competitive and cooperative federalism”.

“Our objective through this index is to not just look at the states’ historical performance but also their incremental performance. The index encourages healthy competition and cross-learning among States and UTs,” said Aayog’s CEO Amitabh Kant.

Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb in his social media handle wrote “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.”