Gujarat high court stays National Family Health Survey for 2014-15

VADODARA: National Family Health Survey (NFHS), the largest household survey conducted in the country to provide health and family data, has hit a roadblock.
The Gujarat high court has stayed NFHS-4 following a petition by Vadodara-based FactIndepth Research and Development India Pvt Ltd, an organization which was earlier involved in the national survey.The organization had moved the court after it was disqualified by Mumbai-based International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), the nodal agency for the survey.
NFHS is extremely crucial for the central government design and rollout of new policy programmes. The survey is conducted under the stewardship of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of Government of India. The technical assistance is provided by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) through ICF Macro, presently known as ICF International.
NFHS-4 aimed at providing estimates of the levels of fertility, infant and child mortality, measuring trends in family welfare and health indicators at national and state levels, is supposed to be carried out in 29 states apart from all the six Union territories covering around 5,71,660 households in the country.
FactIndepth Research and Development India had in May this year applied in the bid process for conducting NFHS-4 in the two states ? Gujarat and Jammu & Kashmir. But IIPS had disqualified the firm claiming that the latter did not fulfill the mandatory criteria of having at least five years of working experience of large scale surveys — a claim which FactIndepth has challenged.
After FactIndepth moved the high court in June this year, the division bench of justice K S Jhaveri and justice A G Uraizee court had stayed the bid process.
"Despite this, the respondents (IIPS and its director professor Fauzdar Ram) proceeded with the bid process. Hence, we moved for contempt proceeding," advocate Archana Amin, counsel for FactIndepath said.
Pursuant to directives issued by the court, IIPS's director had remained present before the court on August 11 but despite the court's directives he failed to remain present again on August 12 on medical grounds.
The High Court in its order on August 12 has stated that prima facie, the conduct of IIPS's director appears to be suspicious and the medical papers shown to it do not inspire confidence.
"It will be open for the court to consider the issue of initiation of contempt proceedings against him on the next date of hearing," the order issued by the division bench of the High Court which has fixed September 10 for final hearing, states.
Meanwhile, IIPS has also drawn flak from its former director professor K Srinivasan who has written a letter to union health minister Harsh Vardhan on the selections of agencies NFHS-4.
In the letter, a copy of which is available with TOI, Srinivasan has expressed his anguish over Population Research Centers (PRCs) not being selected for conducting NFHS-4.
Warning that involvement of private agencies alone will impinge upon the quality of data, Srinivasan has urged the union health minister to take necessary steps to ensure that public institutions like PRCs are involved in the process since NFHS-4 will play an important role in national policy making.