The National Rural Health Mission was launched in April 2005 with the aim of providing accessible, affordable, accountable, effective and reliable health care facilities in rural areas. The State Government spent Rs 634.55 crore from the inception of the scheme till March 2009. There were savings of Rs 250.96 crore (28 per cent). There were instances of irregular expenditure, stage-wise planning was not done and the availability of health care infrastructure, doctors and supporting staff remained inadequate. While there were significant achievements in some interventions and the health indicators accordingly showed improvements, there were shortfalls in administration of iron-folic acid tablets, gender imbalance in sterilisation, low institutional deliveries, low detection of sputum positive cases and nonachievement of the norms of annual parasitic incidence. The indicators of maternal and infant mortality remained short of interim targets.