ABSTRACT
This chapter aims attempt to assess the impact of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). The NRHM was clearly an effort to take healthcare from a narrow “medicalized” perspective to a wider public health approach; from mere discourses on antibiotics, to clean water and sanitation. The public health challenges are many and only a beginning has been made with the NRHM. The public health challenges of clean water, sanitation, and under-nutrition have all to be attended to on a wider platform of community-led human development. A cautious and careful approach is required in partnerships as the health sector does not easily lend itself to market principles. The Accredited Social Health Activists, the foot-soldiers of the National Rural Health Mission, have been ably connecting households to health facilities. India needs to recognize gender and social equity and entitlement of the poor, the vulnerable, and women as inalienable, for the country to make rapid progress on human development indicators.
