Helping states pay 'hard area' allowance to docs in remote

To make postings at public health facilities in rural and remote areas "attractive" to doctors, states are being provided financial support for extending "hard area" allowance to them, the government said today.
"To improve the availability of critical manpower... At public health facilities, financial support is being provided to states under the National Health Mission (NHM) for giving hard area allowance to doctors for serving in rural and remote areas," Union Health Minister JP Nadda said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.
He said the aid is being provided "so that doctors find it attractive to join public health facilities in such areas".

"The states have also been advised to have transparent policies of posting and transfer and adopt rational deployment of doctors," the minister said.
To encourage doctors to work in remote and difficult areas, the Post-Graduate Medical Education Regulations, 2000, have also been amended, he said.
"It has been amended to provide 50 per cent reservation in post-graduate diploma courses for medical officers in government service who have served for at least three years in remote and difficult areas and incentive of 10 per cent of the marks obtained for each year in service in remote or difficult areas up to a maximum of 30 per cent of the marks obtained in the entrance test for admissions in post graduate medical courses," Nadda said.

As per the National Health Profile 2015, the number of beds in rural hospitals is 1,83,602 as against 4,92,177 in urban hospitals, he said.

The implementation and progress of NHM is monitored and reviewed at the national level through Annual Common Review Missions (CRM) which comprise government officials from different ministries along with members of NITI Aayog, public health experts and civil society representatives, he said.
Closer to the ground, District-Level Vigilance and Monitoring Committees are constituted to monitor the progress of implementation of NHM, he said.
Other mechanisms include external surveys like Sample Registration Survey (SRS), the District-Level Household Survey (DLHS) and National Family Health Survey (NFHS), besides regular visits by National Programme Management Units to the states and districts, Nadda said.