The report, which is based on a ground-level survey carried out by representatives from Central Statistics Organization, National Sample Survey Organization and ORG Centre for Social Research in 2009-end and early 2010, notes, "Among major states, UP (41 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (43 per cent), Bihar (49 per cent), Rajasthan (54 per cent), Chhattisgarh (57 per cent), Gujarat (57 per cent), Assam (59 per cent), Jharkhand (60 per cent) and Orissa (60 per cent) stood out as having less percentage of children fully immunized than the national average of 61 per cent."
What is particularly alarming is that full immunization is found to have been covered in just 50 per cent of the households in urban Gujarat, as compared to 60.5 per cent in the rural Gujarat . However, it is interesting that just 2.9 per cent children in the urban areas and 2.4 per cent children in the rural areas did not receive any of the immunization vaccines, suggesting that the level of awareness among the state's households about immunization may be quite high. In the country as a whole, 5.2 per cent of children in the urban areas and 8.5 per cent of children in the rural areas did not receive any immunization.
Even then, the survey has found lack of consistency in receiving immunization vaccines, with a much higher what is called "child immunization dropout rates". The dropout rate was 8.1 per cent for BCG-measles, 19.1 per cent for BCG-DTP-3, 4.2 per cent for DTP1-measles, 9.0 per cent for DTP1-DTP2, 8.2 per cent for DTP2-DTP3 and 16.5 per cent for DTP1-DTP3. Also, there was inconsistency in ensuring that the poor and the scheduled castes and tribes are covered properly. Thus, 54.1 per cent of SC children and 50.5 per cent of ST children got full immunization, as against 58.3 per cent OBCs and 57.7 per cent of higher castes.
By contrast, at the Planning Commission meeting in Delhi, the Gujarat government's presentation in the presence of chief minister Narendra Modi said the maternal mortality rate of Gujarat has gone down from 160 to 130 per lakh pregnant women during the 11th Five-Year Plan; institutional delivery of mothers has gone up from 82 per cent to 93.5 per cent; medical treatment in the first three months of pregnancy is up from 60 per cent to 69.86 per cent; post natal care is provided to 65 per cent of infants as against 80 per cent; and the infant mortality rate is down from 52 to 48 per 1,000 live births.