Back
Rural Health Infrastructure - a statistical overview:
The Centres Functioning
The entire family welfare programme is being implemented through Primary Health Care system. The Primary Health Care Infrastructure has been developed as a three tier system with Sub Centre, Primary Health Centre (PHC) and Community Health Centre (CHC) being the three pillars of Primary Health Care System. Progress of Sub Centres, which is the most peripheral contact point between the Primary Health Care System and the community, is a prerequisite for the overall progress of the entire system. A look at the number of Sub Centres functioning over the years reveal that at the end of the Sixth Plan (1981-85) there were 84,376 Sub Centres. The figure rose to 1,30,165 at the end of Seventh Plan (1985-90) and to 1,36,258 at the end of Eighth Plan (1992-97). At present, as on September, 2005, 1,46,026 Sub Centres are functioning in the country.
Similar progress can be seen in the number of PHCs which was 9115 at the end of sixth plan (1981-85) and the figure almost doubled to 18671 at the end of Seventh Plan (1985-90) and rose to 22149 at the end of Eighth Plan (1992-97). As on September, 2005, there are 23236 PHCs functioning in the country. In accordance with the progress in the number of SCs and PHCs, the number of CHCs has also increased from 761 at the end of Sixth Plan (1981-85) to 1910 at the end of Seventh Plan (1985-90) and 2633 at the end of Eighth Plan (1992-97). As on September, 2005, 3346 CHCs are functioning. According to the figures of population based on 2001 Population Census, the shortfall in the rural health infrastructure comes out to be of 19636 Sub Centres, 4337 PHCs and 3206 CHCs.
National Rural Health Mission
Under the mandate of National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP) of UPA Government, health care is one of the seven thrust areas of NCMP, wherein it is proposed to increase the expenditure in health sector from current 0.9 % of GDP to 2-3% of GDP over the next five years, with main focus on Primary Health Care. The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) has been conceptualized and the same is being operationalised from April, 2005 throughout the country, with special focus on 18 states which includes 8 Empowered Action Group States (Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Orissa and Rajasthan), 8 North East States (Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura) Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir.
The main aim of NRHM is to provide accessible, affordable, accountable, effective and reliable primary health care, especially to poor and vulnerable sections of the population. It also aims at bridging the gap in Rural Health Care through creation of a cadre of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) and improve hospital care, decentralization of programme to district level to improve intra and inter-sectoral convergence and effective utilization of resources. The NRHM further aims to provide overarching umbrella to the existing programmes of Health and Family Welfare including RCH-II, Malaria, Blindness, Iodine Deficiency, Filaria, Kala Azar T.B., Leprosy and Integrated Disease Surveillance. Further, it addresses the issue of health in the context of sector-wise approach addressing sanitation and hygiene, nutrition and safe drinking water as basic determinants of good health in order to have greater convergence among the related social sector Departments i.e. AYUSH, Women & Child Development, Sanitation, Elementary Education, Panchayati Raj and Rural Development.
Overview of NRHM
(i) The National Rural Health Mission is being launched for a period of seven years (2005-2012) i.e. 2 years of Tenth Plan and full Eleventh Plan.
(ii) The Mission shall cover entire country, with focus attention on 18 states having weak demographic indicators/ infrastructure.
(iii) NRHM is an omni-bus broadband programme, and all other programmes would be sub-components, retaining the sub-budget heads wherever required for vertical programmes.
(iv) The emphasis under NRHM is to improve primary health care, decentralization, intra and inter-sectoral convergence and community ownership.
(v) NRHM provides broad policy guidelines – states have flexibility to draw their action plans to attain the goals of NRHM
(vi) RCH-II, including National Family Welfare Programme (NFWP) and Empowered Action Group (EAG) are subsumed into NRHM.
(vii) Operational phase of the Mission is from April, 2005.
(viii) MOUs being entered into, with the State Governments for RCH-II, will be broad based for NRHM, to ensure their commitments to the systemic reform and new financial pattern of performance based funding under NRHM.
Funding
The budget outlay for National Rural Health Mission for 2005-06 is Rs. 6731.16 Crores.
Mission Outcome
The following are anticipated Mission outcomes likely to be achieved after its implementation:
• Provision of village level health provider (ASHA) in under served villages
• Strengthening Sub- centers /PHCs
• Raising CHCs to the level of IPHS
• Institutionalizing District level Management of Health (all districts)
• Prevention and control of communicable and non communicable diseases including locally endemic diseases
• Increase utilization of First Referral Units from less than 20% (2002) to more than 75 % by 2010
• Reduction in communicable diseases, MMR, IMR and would help in attaining population stabilization.
Back