There are various segments of our society which have traditionally remained behind in receiving benefits of development programmes. The government shall continue its endeavor to bring such segments to the fore through various catalytic schemes. The over all allocation of the social welfare schemes is proposed to be increased to Rs.138 crore in comparison to Rs.110 crore provided last year.
Amounts available from the Centre shall be over and above this figure. Special provisions have been made in the budget for development of Gujjar and Bakerwals, Schedule Castes and Schedule Tribes, Women and Child Welfare. An allocation of Rs.20.77 crore has been proposed under Tribal Sub Plan. The allocations for the two autonomous Hill Development Councils in Ladakh shall be given due step up alongwith other district plans which are being finalized shortly.
National Rural Health Mission is a mega national effort at ensuring healthcare through a range of interventions at individual, household, community and most critically at the health system levels. The Central Government is using it as an essential instrument for achieving its goal of health care in the rural landscape. Under NRHM, the Central Government provides 85% of the financial assistance leaving 15% to be raised from out of the State’s own resources.
State Government is committed to make the most of the financial handholding provided by the Central Government under NRHM and supplement its health effort in the rural areas. In order to provide better health care for our rural population and enhance availability of doctors and other paramedical persons in far-off areas of state, the State Government has decided to enhance the wages of the doctors and paramedics working in these far off areas. This will attract qualified medical talent in rural areas with adequate incentives. The doctors employed in NRHM presently get wage of Rs.8000 per month. Their monthly wage would be enhanced to Rs.16000. The paramedics under NRHM are presently employed on monthly wage of Rs.4000 They would now get a monthly wage of Rs.9000.
State Government has also concurrently decided to sanction special incentive for the doctors serving in remote and far flung areas popularly known as difficult areas. For this purpose, the difficult areas would be classified into two categories-category-A (denoting more difficult areas) and category B (denoting difficult areas). The doctors serving in Category-A areas would get additional Rs. 8000 as special incentive while as those serving in Category-B areas would get additional Rs.4000.
This financial dispensation will surely attract more and more qualified medics to serve in rural areas and lead to tangible improvement in a rural healthcare system. The aggregate financial implication involved in the provision of the above financial dispensation would be of the order of Rs.4.30 crore per annum.
