Parliamentary Standing committee red flags health infrastructure in tribal areas

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NEW DELHI: The Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment released a report on January 3 which stated thatthere is a deficit of 1,240 Primary Health Centers (PHC), 273 Community Health Centers (CHC) and 6,503 Sub Centers (SC) in the tribal areas of the country.

A PHC per 20,000 population and a CHC per 80,000 population should be there under the norms of the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).

As per the report, the highest shortfall of doctors at PHCs is in the tribal areas of Chhattisgarh (235), Madhya Pradesh (124) and Odisha (90). 22.4 and 27.6 per cent of sanctioned posts of nursing staff and doctors are lying vacant at PHCs and CHCs respectively.

Out of the 2,35,637 Schedule Tribe (ST) women who registered under Pradhan Mantri Matritva Vandana Yojana (PMMVY)—Maternity Benefit Program—only 1,73, 808 got the benefit in 2017-18 according to the report. Rs 2,400 crore were allocated in the budget for PMMVY in 2018-19, out of which Rs 185.76 crore was for the Tribal-sub Plan, but no funds have been released under PMMVY during the year 2018-19.

To overcome the deficits in tribal areas in terms of physical infrastructure and consequent requirement of manpower,a separate Tribal Health Plan is proposed to be implemented in consultation with MoHFW, the Ministry of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy) and the concerned state governments as focused to be accomplished by 2022.