Understanding Policy Failure: Implementation of National Rural Health Mission in India

Defining policy failure is a difficult task in real world as it not so easy to define the success and failure. However, defining the policy failure is very important, so we can learn from it and avoid repeating it. Number of policies though are well-designed but get failed during the implementation stage. Some of the problems that can take place at policy implementation stage are-interpretation issues, organizational mission issues, organizational coordination issues and resource & organizational capacity constraints. Launch of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was a key initiative undertaken by the Government of India to strengthen the availability and quality of health services in rural India. The key outcomes which were planned to achieve by 2012 were reduction in infant mortality rate (IMR) to 30/1000 live births, reduction in maternal mortality ratio (MMR) to 100/100, 000 live births and reduction in total fertility rate (TFR) to 2.1. Though NRHM made significant contrition in strengthening health services in rural India however the desired outcomes were not met. The key reason for same was challenges faced during implementation stage. However, considering the complexities, it would be difficult to describe NRHM as complete failure.