The National Institution for Transforming India (NITI) says Kerala performed the best when it came to the health sector, and Uttar Pradesh was rated the worst among States. The NITI Aayog’s health index prepared by experts commissioned by the government was released last Friday.
 
Its rank in absolute terms notwithstanding, Uttar Pradesh was one of the three States that showed the best annual improvement, after Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir, the report said.

The report, "Healthy States, Progressive India" calculated the health index through various indicators like child mortality rate, sex ratio at birth, the proportion of people living with HIV/AIDS, immunisation rate and notification of tuberculosis. The reference year for most signs was 2015 or 2016 and the base years to measure the improvement was between one and three years before the reference year.

 

Punjab ranked second in the health sector, while Gujarat and Tamil Nadu grabbed third and fourth places among the larger States. Meanwhile Bihar, Odisha and Rajasthan took the bottom three positions.

 

Among the small States, Mizoram stood in the first place followed by Goa and Manipur. Lakshadweep scored the best overall performance and the best annual addition performance among the union territories.