90% health facilities being provided in govt hospitals: Agrawal

Says no crime in making Gandhi a brand ambassador for deaddiction

Mobile medical units will start in all development blocks

Vision document to be prepared for ten municipal corporations

House passes demand for budgetary grants of over Rs 3242.66 cr for health, urban administration and commercial tax departments

Raipur, March 11, 2013

Health, urban administration and commercial tax minister Amar Agrawal claims that 90% of state’s health facilities are being provided in government hospitals despite some or the other lacking. “Private hospitals do not accept critical cases. They rather refer such cases to government hospitals. There might be shortcomings in the government health centres but we are making constant attempts to upgrade the existing facilities there,” he said while he was speaking during debate over demand for budgetary grants of over Rs 3242.66 crore for his departments at state assembly on Monday. The House passed demand for grants for these departments through voice vote.

“Whatever effort the Chhattisgarh government has made in health sector in past 4-5 years, no other state government has done. Even the state’s health index has improved in the past 13 years as the infant mortality rate has come down from 96 per 1000 in year 2000 to 48 per 1000 at present. Our priority is to make Chhattisgarh a healthy state,” he said.

He admitted that the state’s rural health centres lack adequate doctors. “But similar is the condition in the country too as confirmed by union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad why says that the country is deficient by about 4-5 lakh doctors.

“In fact, in the entire world, 70% doctors work in urban areas, while remaining 30% in rural pockets,” he said.

He informed that the China too operates mobile medical units in rural areas as is being done in Chhattisgarh. “As an experiment, we first started these units in remote areas of 14 districts where doctors are scarce and obtained excellent results. Now, we will operate these units in all 146 development blocks,” he said.

“We will also operate mobile medical units in slum areas of urban areas sunder Chief Minister Urban Health Programme,” he added.

He further informed that the government, through Sanjeevni 108 express facility, carried three lakh patients to hospitals and saved about 20000 lives. 

He said while state’s 56 lakh families would get health treatment facility up to Rs 30000 every year through smart card, the government would provide additional financial help to those whose treatment cost exceed. “The financial aid would be provided under Sanjeevni Kosh. Fro critical medical requisite like kidney transplantation, a patient will get Rs 3 lakh, for neuro-surgery he will get Rs 2 lakh and for other diseases he will get Rs 1.50 lakh,” Agrawal informed.

He claimed that the liquor consumption in state increased because the government checked illegal liquor sale. He said in complete transparency was being maintained in allotment of liquor shops and none had been opened on government’s recommendation in last ten years.

Terming principal opposition Congress members as duplicate great grandchildren of Mahatma Gandhi, he said there was no crime in using Gandhi’s name for deaddiction drive.

He informed that 30% of government revenue comes from commercial tax. “Our revenue through commercial tax, i.e. VAT, registration and excise hiked from mere Rs 1600 crore in year 2003 to Rs 10000 crore in 2013. This is about 900% hike in ten years. This we did without increasing taxes,” he said.

He claimed that the government provides funds to all civic bodies without being biased. “For integrated development of ten municipal corporations, we will prepare vision document. This vision will be for next 30 years. The government has also approved water augmentation scheme in 70% of civic bodies,” he informed.

“Similarly for proper sanitation, we have approved implementation of solid waste management scheme in three municipal corporations – Raipur, Bhilai and Durg,” he said.