Dr NTR Vaidya Seva Trust: An audit of funds spent under Dr NTR Vaidya Seva Trust — the Andhra Pradesh government’s flagship scheme to provide free healthcare to eligible beneficiaries — has thrown up red flags about C-section surgeries in government and private hospitals.
The audit in July-August found that 4.2 per cent of the funds allocated to the health scheme were going towards “unnecessary” C-section surgeries, pointing to an alarming trend that was already known to doctors and health officials.
From June 2024, when the Telugu Desam Party-led NDA government took over, to September 1, 2025, the Dr NTR Vaidya Seva Trust scheme incurred an expenditure of about Rs 6,458 crore.
Speaking in the Legislative Assembly on Tuesday, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu slammed “irresponsible” hospitals and “greedy doctors” for facilitating C-section deliveries even when not medically required. “The hospitals and doctors are going for C-sections even when a natural delivery option is available,” Naidu said.
A number of regional medical directors and district medical and health officers and gynaecologists at private maternity hospitals told The Indian Express that often, expecting mothers and their family members insist on going for a C-section.
Officials said that some bring “chits” from priests or astrologers with auspicious days or timings to perform the surgery.
According to the Health Department’s documents provided to the chief minister, 56.62 per cent of deliveries in 2024-25 were done surgically. Naidu said that at private hospitals, 90 per cent of the deliveries were C-sections, and blamed doctors for not explaining options to parents and pandering to their superstitions.
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Health Minister Satya Kumar Yadav said that the government has identified 104 private hospitals in the state where 100 per cent of the births were through C-section surgeries in 2023-24, and that they are under the scanner and will face action.
“We are warning private hospitals against going for caesarean section surgeries if natural delivery is viable. During inspections by our teams, it has been found that in over 25 per cent of the cases, the reasons given for performing a C-section were not justified,” Yadav said.
He added, “If these private hospitals do not mend their ways, they will first be removed from the Dr NTR Vaidya Seva Trust scheme network. On the other hand, we have instructed our district coordinators of health services (DCHS) in government hospitals to reduce the number of caesarean deliveries and promote natural births.”
Towards the end of July, as the alarming figures started coming in, the AP Health Department launched an initiative to train and deploy nearly 1,300 midwives to 86 government hospitals having high delivery rates.
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“The aim is to give priority to natural deliveries after explaining to the parents, and opt for surgery only when that option is not viable,” said Dr Anil Kumar, Additional Director (Maternal and Child Health). The government is also training more auxiliary nurses and midwives to be deployed to each Primary Health Centre across the state to assist in natural deliveries.
