Healthcare improved in rural Bihar: Survey

There has been improvement in the quality of various services in rural Bihar over the past four years with the health facilities leading the improvement rate at 86 per cent, according to a survey.

As many as 86 per cent of the people are satisfied with improvement in health facilities with the certificates and schools following at 77 per cent and 76 per cent, a citizen report card on public services in rural Bihar (2012) said in its summary of findings based on a survey carried out by AC Nielsen.

The improvement in services related to pension and ration shops under Public Distribution System (PDS) was recorded at 76 per cent and 72 per cent respectively, while the same for Anganwadis and MGNREGS stood at 71 and 86 per cent respectively, Bangalore-based NGO - Public Affairs Foundation (PAF)'s Executive Director Sita Shekhar said at the release of the report card.

However, the grievance redressal has been found to be the worst performing among the eight public services in Bihar recording a rate of 36 per cent, she said.

On satisfaction level of the people with various services, the pension topped the chart at 81 per cent to be followed by health facilities (80), certificates (78), ration shops (78), Anganwadis (71) and MGNREGS (65), but grievance redressal at 47 per cent and MGNREGS at 30 per cent featured prominently when asked about to identify services with which they have been most dissatisfied with, she said.

The implementation of various public services has improved significantly since Right to Public Service (RTPS) came into force on August 15, 2011, and 65 per cent people in rural Bihar have used the right to seek deliver of the services, Shekhar said.

The RTPS has improved the delivery of services like certificates at 91 per cent, pensions (65 per cent) and new ration card (51 per cent), PAF director said.

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