When frontline workers are empowered with the right tools, uptake of lifesaving maternal services improves dramatically.
In the village of Athara in Assam’s Kamrup district, ASHA worker Tarikan Begum has seen this transformation unfold. After completing a mobile-based training programme for frontline health workers, her understanding of maternal care, nutrition, immunisation, and government health schemes deepened—and so did her confidence. “I learned at my own pace,” she says. “I feel more prepared and empowered to support my community.” Today, families turn to her not just for information, but for guidance and reassurance.
Tarikan’s story captures a larger truth shaping India’s maternal health journey. As the country moves toward Viksit Bharat 2047, its development ambitions rest on strong human capital, women’s workforce participation, and a resilient public system, and maternal health is foundational to all three. Digital health tools now offer India an unprecedented opportunity—but only if they strengthen the hands of those delivering care at the frontline.
What India has already achieved
India’s progress in maternal health over the past three decades is both substantial and globally recognised. The country has reduced its maternal mortality ratio (MMR) by 77 per cent—from 556 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1990 to 130 in 2016—placing it on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal target of under 70 by 2030. Eight states have already met this benchmark, including Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, and Karnataka, among others.
These gains did not occur by chance. Since 2005, coverage of essential maternal health services has doubled. Institutional deliveries in public facilities have nearly tripled, and when private facilities are included, nearly four in five births now take place in institutions.
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Demand-side financing programmes have narrowed long-standing rural–urban gaps, with 87 per cent of rural births now supervised. At the same time, improvements in women’s education and later age at marriage have strengthened women’s ability to make informed reproductive choices.
Crucially, India has paired these social and service delivery gains with early investments in digital systems. The Maternal and Child Tracking System (MCTS) was one of the world’s largest digital registries of pregnancies and child health milestones, embedding data-driven delivery into routine care. Today, that foundation has evolved into population-scale digital public infrastructure.
Under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, over 76 crore health accounts have been created, alongside nearly six lakh registered healthcare professionals. Platforms such as U-Win and the POSHAN Tracker now support immunisation and nutrition monitoring for more than 10 crore beneficiaries. Together, these systems represent a shift from fragmented, paper-based workflows to integrated, lifecycle-based maternal and child health care.
From infrastructure to impact: The missing link
And yet, progress on infrastructure does not automatically translate into outcomes.
India’s maternal health journey has reached a critical inflection point. The challenge is no longer expanding access, but ensuring quality, continuity, and equity at scale. This is where progress will be won—or lost. Digital tools can overwhelm frontline workers without sustained training, interoperability across platforms remains uneven, and the most marginalised women are still the easiest to miss. The next phase must shift decisively from infrastructure to enablement, with frontline workers at its core.
Civil society organisations play a critical role in bridging this divide. Digital transformation becomes meaningful only when it improves everyday experiences for frontline workers and the women they serve.
Across India, community-rooted initiatives are complementing government platforms by designing mobile-first, behaviour-informed solutions—decision-support tools for ANMs, reminder systems tailored to beneficiary behaviour, and AI-enabled models that identify who is most likely to drop out of care.
By using predictive analytics to improve engagement, optimising limited outreach capacity, and deploying chatbots that support both health workers and pregnant women, civil society organisations in India are strengthening public systems with a focus on frontline enablement. These approaches are not replacing government systems, but enabling them to work better where it matters most.
A global proof point
International experience reinforces this lesson. In Brazil, a digital platform supporting community health workers reorganised health records and automated reminders for prenatal care. Despite a strong public health network, one million women had been missing recommended visits. With better tools, uptake rose sharply across screenings and antenatal care—underscoring a universal insight: when frontline workers are equipped well, outcomes follow.
What Viksit Bharat demands next
As India deepens its digital health reforms, three priorities will determine whether progress toward Viksit Bharat 2047 translates into lasting maternal health gains—and this is where non-profits and philanthropies have a critical role to play alongside government systems.
First, frontline capacity building must move beyond one-time trainings to continuous, on-the-job enablement. With more than one million ASHAs and ANMs anchoring last-mile care, investments are needed in modular digital training, vernacular decision-support tools, and supervisory coaching models that can help improve counselling quality at scale.
Second, system integration must be operationalised at the user level. Frontline workers often navigate multiple, disconnected interfaces. Targeted philanthropic support for user-centred integration, workflow simplification, and real-time dashboards can reduce duplication and unlock the full value of India’s digital public infrastructure.
Third, equity must be designed into funding itself. Women who are migrant, remote, or socially excluded are often the first to fall off digital systems. Philanthropies should explicitly embed inclusion mandates to ensure digital scale does not come at the cost of exclusion.
Viksit Bharat will ultimately be judged not by digital adoption alone, but by whether India builds systems that assure timely, dignified care for every woman—everywhere.
(Authored by Nita Aggarwal, Associate Director Programs, Asia and Anognya Parthasarathy, Program Manager, Asia, Co-Impact)
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of THE WEEK.