Assam vision document to cut infant, maternal mortality rates

Chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Tuesday said the state is moving towards the goal to provide employment opportunities to women and education to children. Releasing a vision document for women and children, Gogoi said: "We know we still have a long way to go, but at least in the last ten years we have been able to make people aware of a lot of issues and we hope in the coming years we will fulfil the target we have set in the document."

He added: "Issues like high MMR and IMR still plague the state, some schools do not have access to clean drinking water and social evils like witch hunting exist. We hope we overcome these problems in the future and the state develops in the true sense."


The document foresees reducing Infant mortality rate from 58 to 38 per 1000 live births, reduction in maternal mortality rate (MMR) to 210 per 1,00,000 live birth, reduction of total fertility rate to 2.1%, improving child sex ratio, reduction in percentage of anaemia in children and women and reducing the percentage of underweight children (0-5 years) by 30%.

Health and education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who was also present at the occasion, said: "From 2001 to 2005, a lot of economic development has taken place and over the years, the state has gone through a lot of changes. But we can't ignore that women still die due to anaemia and we can't take these issues lightly. I hope that the goals mentioned in the vision document will bring necessary changes in the state." He added: "In the education sector too, we will look into the issues like pupil teacher ratio in every schools, proper implementation of mid day meal schemes in different schools."

Social welfare minister Akon Bora said: "A lot of schemes are being launched for empowering women and now almost 1.5 lakh women have found sustenance under several government schemes. We are stressing on health issues and trying to create awareness on institutional delivery. The government provides Rs 4,000 to pregnant women to go for institutional delivery," he said.