More women are delivering in hospitals, so why are so many still dying?

While the government is encouraging institutional deliveries, the quality of care hasn't improved

Surujmuni Marandi, 24, had decided to deliver her baby at the Godda district hospital in north-eastern Jharkhand. Like many other women, she was drawn to the idea of free medical assistance, medicines, nutrition and postnatal care for poor, pregnant women promised by Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), the government programme aimed at reducing India’s high maternal mortality rate.

Marandi ticked all the boxes in the JSY profile of a woman who needs to be incentivised to deliver in a hospital: She was an Adivasi, poor, had little access to health facilities, and would have gone for a traditional home-birth if