Background/Objectives: In India, a large proportion of people are living below the poverty line. This section of society requires considerable support from the State in the era of growing out-of-pocket expenses on the health. The main objective of the study is to examine the trends in fund utilisation under National Health Mission (NHM) in India. The study also attempts to explore disparities in fund utilisation under NHM across States/UTs.
Methods: A major flagship programme in the health sector, National Health Mission was launched by the Government of India in 2005 with a view to strengthen the public health infrastructure and ensuring universal access, affordability and quality health services.The study is based on the secondary data related to fund allocation, release and utilisation under NHM in India, for the period of eleven years i.e. from 2006-07 to 2016- 17. The study also includes trends in fund utilisation under the various components of NHM. The various components of NHM are: (i) Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adoloscent Health (RMNCHA), formerly, RCH Flexi-pool; (ii) National Urban Health Mission NUHM Flexi-pool; (iii) Flexible pool for communicable diseases; (iv) Flexible pool for Non-communicable diseases, including injury and trauma; (v) Infrastructure Maintenance (IM); and (vi) Family welfare central sector component.
Findings/Application: It was found that there exists considerable irregularity in fund allocation, release and utilisation due to the presence of systemic inefficiencies. Among all the components of NHM, maximum amount of funds were utilised under the component of RMNCHA and NRHM flexi-pool. Moreover, there existed wide variations in fund utilisation under NHM across States/UTs and a size-able proportion of funds were utilised during 2012-16. This implies that there is an urgent need for removing these systemic inefficiencies for improvement in the fund flow mechanism and utilisation, encompassing better implementation of the programme.