There is an increasing body of evidences, coming up in recent years, derived from analysis of data from the National Sample Survey and other sources that the public health services are being increasingly used by the relatively better off sections of the society, leaving the poor and deprived to the medical and health services from the private sector. We propose to check the validity of the above findings using an independent data source, i.e., National Family and Health Survey-2. Thus the paper has twin objectives, first of assessing the differential in use of general health care and family planning services by socioeconomic strata of the population in rural and urban areas for the major states of India and secondly, to compare the findings with those of 52n d round of NSSO. The analysis has been presented in 5 sections. Initially, we construct a household deprivation index to measure the extent of deprivation and validate the same with nutritional status of women and food intake in the household. In section 2 we have examined the utilization of general health services and the patterns emerging from the analysis. In section 3, we studied the utilization of family planning services, with emphasis on limiting methods. In section 4, we compare our findings with that of NSSO findings. Finally, we have presented a few implications of our study. Some of our findings differ significantly from those of the NSS though there are some agreements. Our analysis does not appear to validate the NSS findings widely circulated in national and international circles that the public health services is disproportionately used by better off section of the society, with the exception of undivided Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. In the state of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, the public sector is almost non existant for general health services. In many other states public health system still continues to play an important role in treatment of illness and continues to be main provider of family planning services, particularly, limiting methods irrespective of level of deprivation. However both the NSS and NFHS data agree on the increasing use of private health services in the country.