Central funds for rural health lying unused

27 November 2012

biswabrata goswami
TAMLUK, 27 NOV: A huge amount of Central fund ~ meant to uplift the rural health parameters ~ under the scheme of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) is lying unspent for this current fiscal in West Bengal since the Trinamul Congress came to power.
The total unspent balance, lying with most of the districts, is much higher than the annual entitlements which prompted NRHM director Sanghamitra Ghosh to write a letter (dated 12.11.2012) addressing all district magistrates, asking them to take necessary steps so to expedite utilisation of the amount as per guideline.
According to reports, the total amount lying with 19 districts is around Rs 6.73 crore while funds, lying unspent with 909 primary health centres (PHCs) across the state, are around Rs 5.86 crore.
This comes at a time when the Trinamul Congress government has often been criticised for its poor health services at different hospitals across the state.
The State Health and Family Welfare Society released funds of the NRHM without assessing the actual requirement leading to large unspent funds meant for providing accessible, affordable, accountable, effective and reliable healthcare facilities in rural areas and reduce infant and maternal mortality.
The report states that non-formation of district level annual plans defeated the basic objective of the Mission to decentralise planning and implementation arrangement to ensure that need based and community-owned district health action plans become the basis for interventions in the sector.
Attributing the snail-pace progress to laxity and lack of initiative by the health department officials, saha-sabhadhipati of East Midnapore Mamud Hossain said such an attitude was uncalled for and will not be tolerated. “There is no dearth of funds and the government is willing to improve the health infrastructure, thus there is no room for any laxity,” he told The Statesman.
As most of the districts failed to utilise the Central grants, funds for the year of 2012-2013 could not be released to many districts like East Midnapore, West Midnapore, Purulia, South 24-parganas, Malda, Murshidabad and Nadia.