Rajasthan Cash-Plus Scheme Cuts Low Birthweight 7.4pp

Rajasthan Cash-Plus Scheme Cuts Low Birthweight 7.4pp

A Rajasthan state government‑run maternal nutrition programme that combined conditional cash transfers with nutrition counselling, community outreach and locally designed media messages was associated with substantially better birth outcomes, according to a large‑scale observational study published in Nature Health on 2 June 2026.

The programme targeted women in their second pregnancy across four predominantly tribal districts of southern Rajasthan from January 2021 to August 2024. It provided cash assistance conditioned on attendance at counselling sessions for the mother, her family and the community, alongside behaviour‑change communication through simple health messages.

The evaluation analysed routine health records for 90,732 newborns and 60,899 mothers. Compared with the pre‑programme period, the intervention was associated with:

• a 7.4‑percentage‑point reduction in the prevalence of low birthweight (defined as weight below 2.5 kg);
• an average increase of 3.4 kg in mothers’ weight by the third trimester;
• an increase of approximately 70 g in mean birth weight.

The study employed an interrupted time‑series design, which demonstrates association rather than causation. The authors noted that external factors such as the COVID‑19 pandemic and limitations inherent in routine administrative data could have influenced the results.

The research team comprised scholars from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, IPE Global, IIHMR Jaipur and collaborators from the Government of Rajasthan. Co‑authors included Tanya Marchant (Professor of Implementation Science, LSHTM) and Raghwesh Ranjan (Senior Director, IPE Global), who emphasized that cash assistance helps overcome financial barriers while counselling provides the motivation and knowledge needed for better nutrition choices.

The paper, titled “Effects of a cash‑plus intervention combining conditional cash transfer with social and behaviour‑change communication on pregnancy weight and birth weight in India”, appears as an open‑access original research article in Nature Health (DOI: 10.1038/s44360-026-00143-9).