In news : The Union Budget 2021-22 announces the launch of PM Atma Nirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana
About PM Atma Nirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana
The Union Budget, which allocated Rs 2,23,846 crore for health and wellbeing launched a new centrally sponsored scheme, PM AtmaNirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana, with an outlay of about Rs 64,180 crores over 6 years.
This will develop capacities of primary, secondary, and tertiary care Health Systems, strengthen existing national institutions, and create new institutions, to cater to detection and cure of new and emerging diseases. This will be in addition to the National Health Mission.
Main interventions
The main interventions under the scheme are:
- Support for 17,788 rural and 11,024 urban Health and Wellness Centers
- Setting up integrated public health labs in all districts and 3382 block public health units in 11 states
- Establishing critical care hospital blocks in 602 districts and 12 central institutions
- Strengthening of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), its 5 regional branches and 20 metropolitan health surveillance units
- Expansion of the Integrated Health Information Portal to all States/UTs to connect all public health labs;
- Operationalisation of 17 new Public Health Units and strengthening of 33 existing Public Health Units at Points of Entry, that is at 32 Airports, 11 Seaports and 7 land crossings
- Setting up of 15 Health Emergency Operation Centers and 2 mobile hospitals and
- Setting up of a national institution for One Health, a Regional Research Platform for WHO South East Asia Region, 9 Biosafety Level III laboratories and 4 regional National Institutes for Virology.
- Establishing critical care hospital blocks in 602 districts and 12 central institutions
- Strengthening of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), its 5 regional branches and 20 metropolitan health surveillance units
- Expansion of the Integrated Health Information Portal to all States/UTs to connect all public health labs;
- Operationalisation of 17 new Public Health Units and strengthening of 33 existing Public Health Units at Points of Entry, that is at 32 Airports, 11 Seaports and 7 land crossings
Other key initiatives of the government
In February 2018, the Indian Government had announced Ayushman Bharat Program (ABP) with two components of Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs), to deliver comprehensive primary health care (PHC) services to the entire population.
The Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) was launched for improving access to hospitalisation services at secondary and tertiary level health facilities for bottom 40% of total population. The plans were to have 1,50,000 Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs) by December 2022. The first HWC was launched on 14 April 2018 and by 31 March 2020, a total 38,595 AB-HWCs were operational across India.
