BENGALURU: Chief Minster Siddaramaiah flagged off mobile medical units from Vidhana Soudha on Saturday.
Out of 78 mobile medical units which have been started during 2016-17, 64 are funded by National Health Mission (60 per cent of funding is from NHM and 40 per cent from the state government) and 14 MMUs have been started from State Special Component Plan and Tribal Sub Plan funds in 14 reserved constituencies of Raichur, Kalaburagi, Koppal, Vijayapura, Ballari, Davanagere and Chitradurga districts.
Express had previously reported how monitoring of these units has been lax by the health department who only relied on monthly reports by contracted NGOs to assess its efficacy and did not conduct any on-site inspection.
A statement from the Health Department read, “MMU services will be monitored by the managements of the respective service providers, primary health centre medical officers, taluk health officers, district health and family welfare officers and state level officers. Progress will be reviewed by CEOs of zilla panchayats in the executive committee meeting of District Health & Family Welfare Societies every month, and at the state level every quarter.”
NHM director Ratan Kelkar did not comment on the same when contacted by Express.
MMUs were started to ensure minimum basic health services to the people living in hilly remote areas, areas which are far off from health institutions, areas not well connected with roads, which are mostly inhabited by scheduled caste and scheduled tribe populations.
From 2017-18, all MMUs will be fitted with GPS and will be brought under a Centralised Online Monitoring System. For 64 MMUs, about `24 crore will be spent from NHM and `10 crore will be contributed by the state government.
The government has sanctioned 50 MMUs to selected villages of 50 taluks having more than 40 per cent SC & ST population. It has allocated `25.34 crore in this year’s budget.