Union health minister asks officials to speed up implementation of central schemes

Vijayawada: Union minister of state for health and family welfare Bharati Pawar has advised officials to speed up implementation of central schemes in AP and create more awareness on these schemes for targeted beneficiaries.

The minister reviewed the progress in the implementation of central schemes in Krishna district with the officials here on Monday. She said there was slackness in the spread of awareness on central schemes especially for the scheme for aqua farmers.

“If these schemes are not properly implemented, several related works would get stalled. In Krishna district alone, the Centre is spending `20 crore for fishermen,” she said.

Maintaining that an amount of `123 crore was allotted under National Health Mission and `79 crore for emergency Covid relief packages-1 and 2 by the Centre, the minister said there however was little momentum in the release/utilization of the allotted funds. There is the need to expedite their implementation, she said.

Referring to the release of `27,380 crore in urban and `56,784 crore in rural areas under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana by the Centre for construction of 84,614 houses, the minister said only 5,000 houses were constructed so far. She directed the officials to speed up their completion.

The officials said efforts were on to allot 8,912 houses by AP TIDCO by December and the works to create amenities like approach roads, internal roads, drinking water, power etc were going on at a brisk pace.

The health minister said the Centre under the Jal Jeevan Mission has provided potable water to 1.86 lakh households at a cost of `9.76 crore and would allot more funds if needed for the benefit of the poor. She asked the officials to submit new proposals for schemes in the district through the state government and the Centre would sanction more funds.

Speaking to the media, she lauded the Spandana programme and said it was helping the people solve their problems vis-a-vis land encroachment, law and order etc.

The minister inspected the progress of works in the construction of a medical college in Machilipatnam. She was informed about the work being taken up for construction of medical colleges in the state at a cost of `550 crore, of which 60 per cent was coming from the Centre.

The officials informed the minister that the constructions for the medical colleges would be completed by the end of 2023 and that some 150 admissions would be given to medical students from the next academic year.