Though the maternal mortality rate (MMR) has dropped in Uttar Pardesh, its gap with the national average is growing. This was indicated in the detailed scenario of maternal health care presented at a public interaction programme organised by Mahila Swasthya Adhikar Manch and Health Watch UP at Ganna Sansthan auditorium on Thursday. According to the recent figures released by the Registrar General of India, 440 women died out of every one lakh who gave birth to child from 2004 t0 2006. this figure was 517 for the period 2001-03 and 707 in 1995. However,while the MMR in UP was 1.52 times that of national average in 1997-98, it increased to 1.73 times in 2004- 2006. But even with this reduced MMR, there are over 28,000 maternal deaths in the state every year while over 5.5 lakh women face life threatning situations. After the introduction of NHRM in UP, a district-level household programme carried out in 2008 showed that nearly 74.5 per cent of the pregnant women gave birth to their child at home. Out of 3,660 PHCs in the state, only 615 work 24x7 while 325 have only three nurses. Only 55 CHCs work on 24x7 basis while 23 function as first referral units. Only 5.7 per cent of the CHCs designated as FRUs are performing Caesarian operations and 1.3 per cent have blood storage facilities. Most PHCs are not equipped to deal with complications and are not reporting adequate number of deliveries. In a separate survey carried out by the Indian Institute of Population Studies, 38 out of 70 districts of UP are ranked among the least developed districts of the country going by indicators such as birth order 3 and above, birth below the age 20, women receiving ANC during pregnancy, women receiving at least 2 TT injections and contrceptive prevalence rate. The reason for maternal ill health is attributed to lack of nutritional and contraceptive services, safe abortion, and emergency services to name a few.