Current Affairs Brain Booster for UPSC & State PCS Examination

Topic: PM Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana

Why in News?

• Recently, in Budget 2021, the Finance Minister announced that the Union Budget is set on six pillars with the first being healthcare and wellbeing.
• The government has launched a new centrally sponsored scheme, PM AtmaNirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana, with an outlay of about Rs 64,180 crores over 6 years.
• The investment in healthcare sector has increased "substantially" in budget 2021 as the government focuses on strengthening institutions.
• The earlier allocations to health and wellbeing were Rs 94,452 crore in 2020-21 and Rs 86,259 crore in 2019-20.

Key Objectives

• The PM AtmaNirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana has been announced for developing 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.
• 20% of funds under the NHM are placed in an incentive pool. Incentives are provided to States on achievement of priority indicators including an increase in States’ budgetary expenditure on health.

Main Interventions

• 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 World Health Organisation (WHO) South East Asia Region, 9 Bio-Safety Level III laboratories and 4 regional National Institutes for Virology.

Other Health Initiatives

• 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 ABHWCs were operational across India.

Outlook

• Healthcare spend is proposed to more than double and this will help in rolling out the vaccination program as well as strengthen the delivery system and build better capability and capacity to combat any future pandemics.
• India is rolling out the world's second largest vaccination program and the Government has provided for almost 5 bn USD in the next year's budget to make it happen.
• Besides curative care the focus on preventive and well being will usher in a more holistic approach to reduce morbidity and mortality.