By Our Staff Reporter
DEHRADUN, 21 Jul: The nutritional allowance received by TB patients in the state will now be sent directly to their accounts through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). For this, instructions have been given to the departmental officers. A public awareness campaign will be launched on a large scale for the prevention of sickle cell disease in the tribal areas of the state.
This was stated today by Health Minister Dr Dhan Singh Rawat, who reprimanded officers for not spending the budget approved by the department on time and asked them to fix a target for spending the budget in the future.
Medical Health and Medical Education Minister Dr Rawat today held a review meeting of the Health Department. He had a detailed discussion with the departmental officers regarding the implementation of the decisions taken at the two-day Swasthya Chintan Shivir organised on 14 and 15 July. Dr Rawat said that better treatment is being provided to the identified TB patients in the state by the state government with the help of Ni-kshay Mitras. He said that the monthly nutritional allowance of Rs 500 being given by the department to TB patients will now be made available directly in their accounts through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT). He instructed sending the honorarium of ASHAs directly to their accounts through the Asha Sanjeevani app. He also instructed the officials to run public awareness and free investigation campaigns on a large scale for the prevention of sickle cell diseases in the tribal areas of the state under the National Sickle Cell Anemia Eradication Mission. Most people are unaware of this hereditary disease because of which newborn babies are born with this disease. To break this chain of sickle cell disease, the health teams at the gram panchayat level in the tribal areas will conduct house-to-house tests free of cost.
The minister said that due to non-spending of the budget on time, the common people are deprived of basic facilities like health. Dr Rawat also sought answers on the slow progress of the works under construction. He expressed displeasure at the inability to spend the funds given for medicines, infrastructure, equipment, salaries, etc. He said that apart from completing the works under construction on time, the sanctioned budget should be spent as soon as possible, and monthly progress reports made available. He also gave instructions to the officials to fill the vacant posts pending for a long time under the National Health Mission and Health Department.
Present on this occasion were Mission Director, NHM, Rohit Meena, Additional Secretaries Amandeep Kaur, Garima Ronkali, Namami Bansal, Director General, Health, Dr Vinita Shah, Finance Controller Dipali, Director, Health, Dr Sunita Tamta, Dr Pankaj Singh, Dr MK Maurya, Dr Ajay Nagarkar and other departmental officers.
