Swastha Bharat to take Swachh route to health

NEW DELHI: After Swachh Bharat (Clean India), the government is all set to launch a Swastha Bharat (Healthy India) campaign.Union health minister J P Nadda said on Wednesday that a mapping of disease pattern across the country reveals that areas that lack in sanitation and availability of clean water are facing higher burden of communicable diseases.

“We plan to collaborate with various ministries, for example urban development and water resources, to collaborate and fight together against the root causes for the spread of diseases,“ he said.

Giving example, the health minister said the high incidence of Japanese Encephalitis in parts of Eastern UP and Bihar is due to poor supply of potable water and sanitation problems. “A temporary arrangement for dealing with the crisis could be to installation a RO water purifier system but as a long-term solution we must strive to provide water pipelines to all,“ he added.

Nadda, who has been conducted surprise inspections at top hospitals such as Safdarjung and RML over the last few weeks, said better sanitation in the hospital can help reduce infection risk too.

On reduction in health budget to the tune of Rs 6,000 crore, the minister said the finance ministry took the decision due to underutilization of funds and that it will not impact any major program.“There is no dearth of funds to run key programmes. The decision to cut the budget was taken since funds lay unutilized,“ Nadda said.

A senior health ministry official blamed states for under-utilisation of funds.“Health is a state subject.The health ministry's role is limited to policy formulation, finance and technical assistance to them. But reports show several states have failed to utilise the funds leading to drastic cut in the budget allocation,“ the official said.

The health ministry officials claim all six AIIMS will be made fully-functional by the end of February .