Telangana Tops C-Section Deliveries: CAG Report

 Hyderabad: The rate of Caesarean section (C-section) deliveries in Telangana exceeded the national average by a huge margin, said the performance audit report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on public health infrastructure and management of health services for the year ended March 2022.

In Telangana, C-section deliveries increased from 56 to 62 per cent of total institutional deliveries between 2017-18 and 2021-22. According to data of National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-4 of 2015-16, only 17.2 per cent of births nationwide were delivered via Caesarean section, compared to 57.7 per cent in Telangana. By NFHS-5 of 2019-21, these figures rose to 21.5 per cent nationally and 60.7 per cent in Telangana, the CAG report said.

The report also revealed that in 23 out of the 33 districts in the state, more than 50 per cent of total deliveries were of C-sections. Peddapalli district reported 36,358 deliveries through C-setions, the highest, which amounted to about 80 per cent of total deliveries. The lowest percentage of C-section deliveries (27 per cent) was in Kumaram Bheem Asifabad district at 10,014.

While the state is higher than the national average in institutional deliveries, the number of C-section operations is also high in rural and urban areas. The state had 97 per cent institutional deliveries as opposed to India’s 88 per cent.