(rptg, removing garble in lead para)

New Delhi, June 21 (UNI) Despite Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss claim that the National Rural Health Mission NRHM was working well, the flagship programme of the UPA government has come under severe criticism by a Parliamentary panel for under-utilisation of funds and its failure in reducing Maternal and child mortality in the country.

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare has expressed ''anguish'' that under NRHM sufficient fund has been poured into RCH II programme but the spending of money for bringing down IMR during the Tenth plan remained short of target.

However, the Health Minister had, during a recent meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, asserted that NRHM was working well despite many constraints of health infrastructure. He said amongst the best performers were Andhra Pradesh, Asom, Haryana, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu and Tripura.

Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Punjab and Uttarakhand are among those states where implementation has been average, while Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir were among the worst performers as far as NRHM was concerned, he had informed.

However, the panel felt states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Asom have remained badly performing states even under RCH II as part of NRHM. Inspite of the strategic interventions under the RCH programmes made in the past years, the performance level of those very states needing maximum attention and getting the same too is a cause of concern, it said.

Pointing out that institutional deliveries which were key to reducing IMR and MMR in the country were as low as 12.2 per cent in Nagaland, 19.2 per cent in states like Jharkhand and 22 per cent in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and Asom, the Committee said, ''The gloomy picture only speaks of the level programme that has been able to penetrate into the rural areas of the country and the failure of the objectives thereof.

From the data of unspent balance it was evident that though funds have been released to the states expenditure during the first two quarters have miserable especially in Bihar, UP, MP and Rajasthan among the high focus states while Asom, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura are also way behind their targets. This piling of the unspent balance in high focus states meant that in a haste to complete the targets speedy work may compromise the quality of deliverables.

More UNI