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The budget process is covered by live TV and extensively by most newspapers each year. Most large companies have their own analysis of the budget. Increasingly, there is an effort by civil society groups to analyse the budget to decipher the allocations to the social sector. All of this is hugely important and indeed necessary for greater scrutiny and analysis by citizens across the country.
But we at PRS have often spoken about the role of Parliament in effectively scrutinising the government. If there is anything that the Parliament must scrutinise carefully each year, it is the budget – because this is the way in which the government expresses its real priorities. Even if the Parliament passes Bills on any subject – right to education, right to health, right to food, etc. – a good measure of the true willingness of the government to implement any of this can be seen by how much money it is willing to allocate to make things a reality.
Former Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha spoke about the budget process (Times of India, Feb 27th) and has argued that the current process in India is archaic and is in urgent need of an overhaul. He also points that Parliament has little power to change anything in the budget, and argues that this undermines the principles of our Parliamentary democracy. We agree.
On our part, we have produced two documents to help readers understand the budget process better. How to read the union budget and the Union Budget process can both be accessed from our website. And we would greatly appreciate your comments on this and other posts on our blog.
Recently, the Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare submitted its report to the Parliament on the National Commission for Human Resource for Health Bill, 2011. The objective of the Bill is to “ensure adequate availability of human resources in the health sector in all states”. It seeks to set up the National Commission for Human Resources for Health (NCHRH), National Board for Health Education (NBHE), and the National Evaluation and Assessment Council (NEAC) in order to determine and regulate standards of health education in the country. It separates regulation of the education sector from that of professions such as law, medicine and nursing, and establishes professional councils at the national and state levels to regulate the professions. See here for PRS Bill Summary. The Standing Committee recommended that this Bill be withdrawn and a revised Bill be introduced in Parliament after consulting stakeholders. It felt that concerns of the professional councils such as the Medical Council of India and the Dental Council of India were not adequately addressed. Also, it noted that the powers and functions of the NCHRH and the National Commission on Higher Education and Research (to be established under the Higher Education and Research Bill, 2011 to regulate the higher education sector in the country) were overlapping in many areas. Finally, it also expressed concern over the acute shortage of qualified health workers in the country as well as variations among states and rural and urban areas. As per the 2001 Census, the estimated density of all health workers (qualified and unqualified) is about 20% less than the World Health Organisation’s norm of 2.5 health workers per 1000 population. See here for PRS Standing Committee Summary. Shortfall of health workers in rural areas Public health care in rural areas is provided through a multi-tier network. At the lowest level, there are sub health-centres for every population of 5,000 in the plains and 3,000 in hilly areas. The next level consists of Primary Health Centres (PHCs) for every population of 30,000 in the plains and 20,000 in the hills. Generally, each PHC caters to a cluster of Gram Panchayats. PHCs are required to have one medical officer and 14 other staff, including one Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM). There are Community Health Centres (CHCs) for every population of 1,20,000 in the plains and 80,000 in hilly areas. These sub health centres, PHCs and CHCs are linked to district hospitals. As on March 2011, there are 14,8124 sub health centres, 23,887 PHCs and 4809 CHCs in the country.[i] Sub-Health Centres and Primary Health Centres
Table 1: State-wise comparison of vacancy in PHCs
Doctors at PHCs |
ANM at PHCs and Sub-Centres |
|||||
State | Sanctioned post | Vacancy | % of vacancy | Sanctioned post | Vacancy | % of vacancy |
Chhattisgarh | 1482 | 1058 | 71 | 6394 | 964 | 15 |
West Bengal | 1807 | 801 | 44 | 10,356 | NA | 0 |
Maharashtra | 3618 | 1326 | 37 | 21,122 | 0 | 0 |
Uttar Pradesh | 4509 | 1648 | 36 | 25,190 | 2726 | 11 |
Mizoram | 57 | 20 | 35 | 388 | 0 | 0 |
Madhya Pradesh | 1238 | 424 | 34 | 11,904 | 0 | 0 |
Gujarat | 1123 | 345 | 31 | 7248 | 817 | 11 |
Andaman & Nicobar Isld | 40 | 12 | 30 | 214 | 0 | 0 |
Odisha | 725 | 200 | 28 | 7442 | 0 | 0 |
Tamil Nadu | 2326 | 622 | 27 | 9910 | 136 | 1 |
Himachal Pradesh | 582 | 131 | 22 | 2213 | 528 | 24 |
Uttarakhand | 299 | 65 | 22 | 2077 | 0 | 0 |
Manipur | 240 | 48 | 20 | 984 | 323 | 33 |
Haryana | 651 | 121 | 19 | 5420 | 386 | 7 |
Sikkim | 48 | 9 | 19 | 219 | 0 | 0 |
Meghalaya | 127 | 23 | 18 | 667 | 0 | 0 |
Delhi | 22 | 3 | 14 | 43 | 0 | 0 |
Goa | 46 | 5 | 11 | 260 | 20 | 8 |
Karnataka | 2310 | 221 | 10 | 11,180 | 0 | 0 |
Kerala | 1204 | 82 | 7 | 4232 | 59 | 1 |
Andhra Pradesh | 2424 | 76 | 3 | 24,523 | 2876 | 12 |
Rajasthan | 1478 | 6 | 0.4 | 14,348 | 0 | 0 |
Arunachal Pradesh | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 0 |
Assam | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 0 |
Bihar | 2078 | 0 | NA | NA | NA | 0 |
Chandigarh | 0 | 0 | NA | 17 | 0 | 0 |
Dadra & Nagar Haveli | 6 | 0 | NA | 40 | 0 | 0 |
Daman & Diu | 3 | 0 | NA | 26 | 0 | 0 |
Jammu & Kashmir | 750 | 0 | NA | 2282 | 0 | 0 |
Jharkhand | 330 | 0 | NA | 4288 | 0 | 0 |
Lakshadweep | 4 | 0 | NA | NA | NA | 0 |
Nagaland | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 0 |
Puducherry | 37 | 0 | NA | 72 | 0 | 0 |
Punjab | 487 | 0 | NA | 4044 | 0 | 0 |
Tripura | NA | NA | NA | NA | NA | 0 |
India | 30,051 | 7,246 | 24 | 1,77,103 | 8,835 | 5 |
Sources: National Rural Health Mission (available here), PRS.Note: The data for all states is as of March 2011 except for some states where data is as of 2010. For doctors, these states are Bihar, UP, Mizoram and Delhi. For ANMs, these states are Odisha and Uttar Pradesh. |
Community Health Centres
Table 2: Vacancies in CHCs of medical specialists
Surgeons | Gynaecologists | Physicians | Paediatricians | |
State |
% of vacancy |
|||
Andaman & NicobarIsland | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
Andhra Pradesh | 74 | 0 | 45 | 3 |
Arunachal Pradesh | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Assam | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Bihar | 41 | 44 | 60 | 38 |
Chandigarh | 50 | 40 | 50 | 100 |
Chhattisgarh | 85 | 85 | 90 | 84 |
Dadra & Nagar Haveli | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Daman & Diu | 0 | 100 | 0 | 100 |
Delhi | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Goa | 20 | 20 | 67 | 66 |
Gujarat | 77 | 73 | 0 | 91 |
Haryana | 71 | 80 | 94 | 85 |
Himachal Pradesh | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Jammu & Kashmir | 34 | 34 | 53 | 63 |
Jharkhand | 45 | 0 | 81 | 61 |
Karnataka | 33 | NA | NA | NA |
Kerala | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Lakshadweep | 0 | 0 | 100 | 0 |
Madhya Pradesh | 78 | 69 | 76 | 58 |
Maharashtra | 21 | 0 | 34 | 0 |
Manipur | 100 | 94 | 94 | 87 |
Meghalaya | 50 | NA | 100 | 50 |
Mizoram | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Nagaland | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Odisha | 44 | 45 | 62 | 41 |
Puducherry | 0 | 0 | 100 | NA |
Punjab | 16 | 36 | 40 | 48 |
Rajasthan | 57% | 46 | 49 | 24 |
Sikkim | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Tamil Nadu | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Tripura | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Uttar Pradesh | NA | NA | NA | NA |
Uttarakhand | 69 | 63 | 74 | 40 |
West Bengal | 0 | 57 | 0 | 78 |
India | 56 | 47 | 59 | 49 |
Sources: National Rural Health Mission (available here), PRS. |
[i]. “Rural Healthcare System in India”, National Rural Health Mission (available here).