14 august 2024 : “What’s in a name?” William Shakespeare said this in his play ‘Romeo and Juliet’ to convey that the naming of things is irrelevant. But in Punjab, it has cost over Rs 933 crore.
The branding of primary health centres (PHCs) and health and wellness centres (HWCs) as Aam Aadmi Clinics (AACs) has made Punjab lose the National Health Mission (NHM) grant for the past two years
While the state has lost the major share (over 80 per cent) in the past fiscal, it has got only 3.74 per cent of the total allocation for the current financial year so far.
However, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann told The Tribune on Tuesday that the matter would be resolved soon. “We are in talks with the Centre and hopefully, an early resolution will be worked out shortly,” he said.
As per the branding guidelines, the PHCs and HWCs should have been named as Ayushman Arogya Mandir (earlier known as Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centre), but Punjab has christened these as Aam Aadmi Clinics with big pictures of CM Mann displayed prominently on the clinics.
Punjab Health Minister Balbir Singh was briefed by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) at a recent meeting in New Delhi that the state government had not only violated the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed with the Centre, but had also not adhered to the Department of Expenditure’s (DoE) mandatory compliance guidelines.
In this way, Punjab has lost Rs 933.16-crore NHM grant in the past two years. Against the allocation of Rs 457.9 crore for the 2023-24 financial year, the state has got only Rs 91.49 crore, while just Rs 22.05 crore of the annual allocation of Rs 588.8 crore for 2024-25 has so far been released by the Centre.
Confirming the development, a senior MoHFW official said the Punjab Government had not adhered to the DoE’s guidelines on the scheme for special assistance to the states for capital investment under the NHM and had violated the provisions of Clause 10.3 and 10.10 of the MoU signed between the MoHFW and the Punjab Government.
“At a recent meeting, the Punjab Health Minister was categorically briefed that the state had neither followed the colour scheme nor displayed the six logos mandated under the guidelines,” she said, adding that the Centre had released to Punjab NHM funds to the tune of Rs 448.89 crore in 2022-23, Rs 349.21 crore in 2021-22, Rs 568.14 crore in 2020-21, and as much as Rs 712.02 crore in 2019-20 when it had followed the norms.
Following the repeated missives from the MoHFW, the state government has reviewed the matter and initiated talks with the Centre to resolve the issue at the earliest.
What guidelines stipulate
The DoE says all states/UTs have to adhere to the norms on the scheme for special assistance to the states for capital investment under the NHM. One of the mandatory conditions stipulated in Para (4) reads, “Full compliance with the official names of all centrally sponsored schemes and any guideline/ instruction issued by the Union Government regarding branding of all Central schemes.”
What MoU says
A MoU was signed between the MoHFW and the Punjab Government for implementation of NHM from April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2026. Clause 10.3 of the MoU reads, “The state shall ensure that the implementation of the programmes/activities envisaged under the NHM is as per the framework of implementation of the scheme and other guidelines provided by the MoHFW from time to time.”
Clause 10.10 specifies: “The state government shall adhere to all existing manuals, guidelines, instructions and circulars issued in connection with implementation of the NHM, which are not contrary to the provisions of the MoU.”