District lags behind in ‘DHO’ ranking

Lokmat News Network

Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar:

Based on the implementation of national health programmes, the Office of the Health Services Commissioner has recently released the state-level ranking for October 2025. In this ranking, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district has slipped behind. District health officer (DHO) Dr Abhay Dhanorkar said the district fell back mainly due to an inadequate system for maintaining daily records of health programmes.

The state health department implements various initiatives, campaigns and programmes, including maternal and child health, family planning, adolescent girls’ health, immunisation drives, RCH online portal registrations, tuberculosis control programmes, and free health check-ups under Ayushman Bharat Arogya Vardhini. Daily data related to these programmes is required to be recorded by the offices of the District Health Officer and the Civil Surgeon. Based on these records, the Health Services Commissionerate conducts a monthly evaluation and announces rankings indicating which districts are performing well and which are lagging behind. Dr Dhanorkar expressed concern that the district has fallen behind in the current ranking.

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Shortage of manpower

“Our performance under national health programmes is good, but we are lagging in online data entry. We face an acute shortage of manpower. The responsibility of daily data entry on portals lies with multi-purpose health workers (MPWs) and auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs). Under the Zilla Parishad health department, 490 ANM posts are sanctioned, but only 260 are currently filled. Nearly 50 per cent of the posts are vacant, and in many cases, one staff member has been assigned charge of two sub-centres,”

— Dr Abhay Dhanorkar, district health officer, zilla parishad