Indian states rankings

=National Family Health Survey=

National Family Health Survey has been an important component of the project to strengthen survey research capabilities of Population Research centres in India. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare designated the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS)for providing coordination and technical guidance for NFHS.

NFHS-1 was conducted in 1991 and NFHS-2 was conducted in 1998-1999. NFHS-3 report was conducted in 2005-2006 and was released on 11 Oct 2007. NFHS administeredthree questionires for obtaining data, the Household Questionnaire, the Woman’s Questionnaire and the Village Questionnaire. Varying number of people for each of all 28 states including the Union territory Delhi, were interviewed.

It provides informationon population, health and nutrition in India andeach of its 29 states. The survey is based on a sample ofhouseholds which is representative at the national andstate levels. NFHS-3 provides trend data on key indicatorsand includes information on several new topics,such as HIV/AIDS-related behaviour and the health ofslum populations. For the first time, NFHS-3 also providesinformation on men and unmarried women. In addition,HIV prevalence is measured at the national leveland for selected states. This fact sheet presents provisionalinformation on key indicators and trends at thenational level. The NFHS-3 fi eldwork was conducted by18 Research Organizations between December 2005and August 2006 [http://www.nfhsindia.org/] .

Overall performance

The results from NFHS-3 were used to compile many of these following rankings. On the national level, there are remarkableimprovements in many of the aspects included in the survey. The literacy has increased to 67.6%. Infant mortality has decreased from68 for every 1000 births in NFHS-2 to 57. Contraceptive use among married people between 15-49 of age has increased from 48% to 56%. Total fertility rate has decreased from 2.9 to 2.7.

Rankings

Area

India has 2.2 % of the whole land mass which makes up the earth.. India is the 7th largest
country in the world. The largest country in the world, Russia, is 5.2 times larger than India. Canada is3.03 times bigger, China and USA are 2.9 times larger, Brazil is 2.6 times larger and Australia is 2.4 times bigger than India and rest of all countries are smaller than India.

India has 28 states and 7 Union territories. Rajasthan is the largest state in India and Goa the smallest. Many of the Indian states are as large as many of the existing countries. Rajasthan is the same size as Germany, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh are as large as Poland,
Andhra Pradesh is larger than New Zealand, Uttar Pradesh is as large as United Kingdom, Tamil Nadu is as large as Greece, Haryana is larger than Switzerland and even the smallestIndian state Goa is bigger than Mauritius.1 2.

Population

Population explosion in the Indian subcontinent has been a major impediment to development in the past several decades. Statistics on fertility rate has demonstratedvariable results among the states. It is interesting to note that all the four South Indian states Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu has an average fertility rate below 2 implying these states are no longer going to contribute to the population explosion in India. Goa, Punjab, Sikkim and Himachal Pradeshalso have registered fertility rate below 2. Arunachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Jharkhand, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have registeredhighest fertility rate between 3 and 4.

Literacy

Literacy rate has improved considerbly. Mizoram has topped the list with 91.1 % literacy, Kerala comes a close second with 90.8% literacy rate . Tripura, Himachal Pradesh, Goa, also have recorded literacy rate above 80%, which is a remarkable achievement.

Infrastructure

Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Punjab have done exceptionally well in providing electricity to almost almost 100% of their households. However, it is disheartening to notethat about 50% homes in West Bengal, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Assam and Bihar have no electricity.

Kerala has ranked first with an impressive 84% of its resident families owning a pucca house compared to Tripura where only about 12% families live in such luxury.

Tamil Nadu has topped in having the lowest number of persons in each household to be 3.5. This number is likely to decrease throughout India as peoplemove across and outside the country in search of opportunities.

Health care

Vaccination coverage among Tamil Nadu, Goa, Kerala and Himachal Pradesh has been excellent with more than 75% of the kids between ages of 12-23 months all receivingthe recommended vaccines.

AIDS awareness among people has certainly come a long way as about 20 of all states have about 75% people who have heard about the risks of HIV.

Media exposure

More than 75% households in Punjab, Goa and Himachal Pradesh own a television at home. Media exposure has been excellent as evidenced by about 12 states having anexposure over 80%. However, the male/female ratio has not been very symmetrical.

Regional differences

India is divided into 5 regions North India, South India, West India, East India and North East India.Performances among these different regions have varied considerably in all the studies conducted during NFHS-3. South india followed by West India have fared better than the rest of the regions. It is remarkable to note that North East India has done very well in areas of literacy and providing electricity to their homes.

*North India: Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarkhand and Uttar Pradesh.

*South India : Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

*West India: Goa, Gujarat and Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

*East India: Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal.

*North East India: Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura.

Ranking Lists

* Indian states ranking by literacy rate
* Indian states ranking by fertility rate
* Indian states ranking by households having electricity
* Indian states ranking by household size
* Indian states ranking by vaccination coverage
* Indian states ranking by television ownership
* Indian states ranking by media exposure
* Indian states ranked by HIV awareness
* Indian states ranking by underweight people
* Indian states ranking by overweight people
* Indian states ranking by institutional delivery
* Indian states ranking by families owning house

References

http://www.nfhsindia.org/