NEW DELHI: The Centre on Thursday sanctioned Rs 15,000 crores for India COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package.
While Rs 7774 crore from the funds will be utilized for immediate COVID-19 Emergency Response, the rest will be availed for the medium-term support (1-4 years) under mission mode approach.
A statement by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said that the key objectives of the package include mounting emergency response to slow and limit COVID-19 in India through the development of diagnostics and dedicated facilities for COVID-19 patients, centralized procurement of essential medical equipment and drugs required for treatment of infected patients.
The fund is also meant to strengthen and build resilient national and state health systems to support prevention and preparedness for future disease outbreaks, setting up of laboratories and bolster surveillance activities, bio-security preparedness, pandemic research and proactively engage communities and conduct risk communication activities.
These interventions and initiatives would be implemented under the overall umbrella of the ministry, the release saud
The major share of the expenditure is being directed to be used for mounting robust emergency response, strengthening national and state health systems followed by strengthening pandemic research and multi-sector national institutions and platforms for One Health, community engagement and risk communication and implementation, management, capacity building, monitoring and evaluation component.
The ministry has been authorized to re-appropriate resources among components of the package and among the various implementation agencies such as National Health Mission, central procurement, Railways, Dept of Health Research or Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), National Centre for Disease Control as per the evolving emergent situation.
The ministry has already disbursed Rs 4113 crore to all states for dealing with the emergency COVID response.