First the good news: the literacy rate in the country has shown an increase of 8.2 per cent during the decade 2001-2011, with Kerala recording the highest and Bihar having the lowest literacy rate. Over all the literacy rate of India is 73.0 per cent, while for males it is 80.9 per cent and for the females it is 64.6 per cent.
Even the country’s low sex ratio has shown a slight improvement. However, despite growth in recent times, health infrastructure in country remains below international standards with only 6.28 lakh hospital beds and 9.18 lakh allopathic doctors for over 1.25 billion people in the country,” reveals the report.
Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan National Health Profile, 2013, also highlighted the difference in health facilities available to people as infant mortality rate, a key human development index, in Kerala was only 66 per 1 lakh live births while it was 328 in Assam in 2010-12.
The respite is that the infant mortality rate in the country has declined from 47 in 2010 to 42 in 2012 and the total fertility rate also continues to fall as it was 2.4 in 2012, according to official figures.According to the report, Delhi with 1511 cases accounted for the maximum number of swine flu victims while Gujarat at 196 reported most deaths. Madhya Pradesh reported maximum number of foeticide and infanticide cases.
While the over all prevalence of Malaria has diminished, maximum cases has been registered in Orissa while maximum number of deaths has been reported from Maharashtra. According to the report, Bihar accounted for most of the cases and death by Kala Ajar in 2013, Bihar accounted for about 78 per cent of the cases and 85 per cent of the casualties. As per the report, there are 18.1 per cent households having closed drainage and 48.9 percentages of households having no drainage as per the census 2011.