Rs 23,000 cr health infra boost to tackle future Covid waves

With a vision to boost to the COVID-19 care facilities in the country, the government has cleared a Rs 23,000 crore special package, which will be jointly implemented by the Centre and States over the next nine months, said the newly appointed health minister Mansukh Lal Mandavia. A report by Krishnanand Tripathi, Deputy Editor, ETV Bharat.

New Delhi: In order to boost the Covid care facilities to tackle any future Covid wave, the government has cleared a Rs 23,000 crore special package, which will be jointly implemented by the Centre and States over the next nine months, said the newly appointed health minister Mansukh Lal Mandavia.

The decision was taken in a meeting of the Union cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi on Thursday.

“Given the problems faced by us during the second Covid wave, the Cabinet has approved the second phase of Covid Emergency Response Package of Rs 23,123 crore,” Mandavia told reporters after the meeting of the Cabinet.

Mandavia, who holds the dual charge of health and family welfare, and also of chemicals and fertilisers, said both the Centre and States will jointly implement the package and money will be given to States.

“The Centre will contribute an amount of Rs Rs 15,000 crore while States will contribute Rs 8,000 crore,” he added.

Mandavia said the second phase of Covid Emergency Response package will be implemented in consultation states after finding out about their requirements.

“The package has been designed to tackle the problems faced by the country during the peak of the second Covid wave so that there is no shortage of oxygen, no shortage of critical medicines. And we will also see how we can tackle the Covid if it affects children in future,” said the minister.

How the money will be utilised

The health minister said the utilisation of money would be monitored through a centralised digital dashboard and the money will also be used in supporting the tele-medicine and tele-consultation facilities.

According to Mandavia, the money will also be utilised in setting up beds in every state at Primary Healthcare Centres (PHC) and Community Healthcare Centres (CHC) level. 2,44,000 beds will be set up under this scheme and pediatric care centres will also be established in 736 districts of the country.

In addition to this, 20,000 ICU beds will be established under the package. Out of these 20,000 ICU beds, 20% beds will be hybrid in nature so that they can be used for treatment of both kids and adults, said the minister.

Mandavia said such arrangements have been made under the package that if the pandemic further aggravates then large field hospitals with the capacity of 5,000 beds and 2,500 beds can also be set up.

“In the second wave, we also saw the problem of transportation of oxygen. So the package will also help in setting up an oxygen storage plant of 10,000 litre capacity in each district headquarter,” he said.

The money will also be used in augmenting the ambulance services.

Rs 38,000 crore in two phases

In order to prime the country’s health infrastructure, the Centre has announced a Rs 15,000 crore Covid Emergency Response Package in April last year.

The minister said the package served its purpose with good results as it resulted in increasing the number of category one dedicated Covid care hospitals from just 163 hospitals in April last year to 4,389 hospitals today.

“At that time, we did not have a single category-two dedicated Covid health centre. We have established 8,338 category-two dedicated Covid care health centres by utilising that fund,” Mandavia told the reporters, adding that the fund has also been utilised in setting up over 10,000 category-three dedicated Covid health care centres across the country.

“We had only 50,000 oxygen beds in the country at that time. Today, the number of oxygen bends has increased to over 4,17,000 oxygen beds,” he said.

Rs 50,000 easy credit for health sector

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had also announced a Rs 50,000 easy credit facility for private sector hospitals under the Rs 6.29 lakh crore economic stimulus package last month.

Under the schemes, the Centre will provide guarantee for up to Rs 100 crore loans given by banks to private hospitals outside eight metro cities.

Under the scheme, the Centre would provide a guarantee of 75% of the loan amount for new projects and the guarantee of 50% of the loan amount in case of loan taken for expansion of the existing facilities. However, in case of more than 110 backward districts, known as aspirational districts, the Centre would provide a guarantee of 75% of the loan amount for both new and expansion projects.