VIJAYAWADA: Andhra Pradesh is one of the eight States in the country that has achieved the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target to reduce Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) to less than 70 deaths per lakh live births by 2030. AP stood fourth at 45 maternal deaths for every lakh live births in 2018-20, as per socio-economic survey 2022-23.
The survey, which was tabled in the Parliament on Tuesday, said with efforts made under the Reproductive, Maternal, New-born, Child, Adolescent Health Plus Nutrition (RMNCAH+N) strategy, India has made considerable progress in improving the health status of both mothers and children.
The survey said the Sample Registration System data revealed that India successfully achieved the milestone to bring the MMR to below 100 per lakh live births by 2020 by bringing it down to 97 per lakh live births in 2018-20 from 130 per lakh live births in 2014-16.
When it comes to making India chemical-free by adopting Organic and Natural Farming, the survey said promotion of natural farming began in 2019-20, when Bhartiya Prakratik Krishi Paddhati, a sub-scheme of PKVY, was launched to assist farmers in adopting traditional indigenous practices for encouraging all forms of ecological farming, including Zero-Budget Natural Farming .
Till now, 4.09 lakh hectare of land have been brought under Natural farming in 8 States including AP under the BPKP, the survey said. With respect to the initiatives by various States to improve their own resources, the socio-economic survey said AP along with States like Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Karnataka, MP and others have considered revising their power tariff during the financial year 2022-23. Telangana had revised the property taxes during the year to support their revenues, it said.
High rural inflation in State
Andhra Pradesh reported higher rural inflation than urban inflation with the prices of fuel and clothing being the major contributions to the surge in inflation. Telangana stood top in inflation in 2023 when compared to the previous year. Telangana inflation rate was more than 9% while AP’s inflation rate was a little over 7% as against 5 % inflation in the last fiscal.
When it comes to Food Inflation caused by vegetables and cereals in the financial year 2023, the survey said the high inflation in vegetables in the county from April to Sept 2022 was mainly due to spike in prices of tomatoes owing to crop damage and supply disruption due to unseasonal heavy rains in major producing states.