Union Health Minister Shri Jagat Prakash Nadda released the 'SUMAN Roadmap 2030' during the 16th Conference of the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare. This comprehensive multi-dimensional strategic framework is designed to strengthen maternal and newborn healthcare and accelerate progress towards Sustainable Development Goal targets for reducing maternal and newborn mortality by 2030.
The Roadmap addresses persistent gaps in maternal and newborn mortality, particularly in high-focus States, through customized, evidence-based interventions tailored to state and district needs. It adopts a life-cycle approach integrating interventions across pre-pregnancy care, antenatal care, intrapartum care, and postnatal care, while promoting convergence with child health, adolescent health, family planning, and nutrition under the RMNCHA+N framework.
A key feature is a structured four-stage framework for identification, tracking and management of high-risk pregnancies, focusing on antenatal high-risk pregnancy (especially third-trimester), intrapartum high-risk pregnancy, and postnatal high-risk mothers. The framework incorporates contextualized interventions addressing transportation challenges, access in tribal and hard-to-reach areas, quality emergency obstetric care, Jan Bhagidari through SUMAN Panchayats, and climate change impacts.
The Roadmap introduces targeted strategies across 130 districts in 13 high-focus States: Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and West Bengal. For these states, it proposes a comprehensive SUMAN Package for Pregnant Women to promote timely registration, complete antenatal care, quality clinical assessment, and adequate post-partum institutional stay. Community-level interventions include bi-weekly home visits by ASHAs during the eighth and ninth months of pregnancy for danger sign screening, nutrition counselling, birth preparedness, and reinforcement of institutional delivery.
Financial support is proposed for a designated caregiver to accompany mothers during the critical postnatal period, along with strengthened referral transport for obstetric emergencies in hard-to-reach regions. Infrastructure strengthening includes mandatory establishment of Birth Waiting Homes, Maternal and Child Health Wings, Obstetric High Dependency Units, and Intensive Care Units in difficult and underserved areas.
For all States and Union Territories, the Roadmap envisages institutionalizing pre-pregnancy folic acid supplementation, comprehensive nutrition interventions to address maternal anaemia and undernutrition, and strengthened tracking of high-risk mothers across all stages. Community participation is emphasized through SUMAN Panchayat initiatives promoting zero maternal deaths, zero infant deaths, universal antenatal care, institutional deliveries, and full immunization, along with Mothers' Picnic as a community awareness platform.
The framework also focuses on strengthening Maternal Death Surveillance and Response and Maternal Near Miss reviews, introducing Non-Pneumatic Anti-Shock Garments for obstetric haemorrhage management, digitalisation and AI-enabled labour rooms, enhanced monitoring through the JANANI portal, climate-responsive action plans for heatwaves, optimization of Caesarean section rates, and implementation of the Samagra Shishu Bal Swasthya Karyakram covering home-based care from birth to 36 months.
Implementation mechanisms include development of Centres of Excellence, establishment of a centralised SUMAN Call Centre for grievance redressal, strengthened referral linkages between health facilities, and enhanced digital monitoring through the JANANI portal. The Roadmap aims to reduce Maternal Mortality Ratio to below 70 per 100,000 live births by 2030, reduce Neonatal Mortality Rate and Infant Mortality Rate, achieve saturation of maternal and newborn health services across all states, and realize zero preventable maternal and newborn deaths.