Panel calls for realistic appraisal of AIDS Control Programme

A parliamentary panel has asked the Health Ministry to make a "realistic" appraisal of the fourth phase of the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) which comes to an end this year.
With around 2.27 million people suffering from AIDS in India, the Committee of Petitions on Health Ministry has also asked it to undertake an advance planning for continuity of the programme by weeding out deficiencies.
"Since the fourth phase of NACP would conclude in 2017, the committee earnestly desire that the Health Ministry would make a realistic appraisal of this programme by taking into account the sufficiency of budgetary allocation during the five-year period (2012-17), money received from global fund and the World Bank, impact of unavailability of donors, etc.," it said.

In February 2014, the government launched the fourth phase of anti-AIDS/HIV strategy under the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO).
The committee noted that this five-year plan (2012-17) aims at sustaining and building up on the results of NACP-III phase.
"...The committee also recommends that the government should undertake an advance planning for continuity in the NACP by weeding out deficiencies noticed by them in the earlier programmes so that any break during the interregnum period should not affect the programme as well as dampen the hopes of people living with HIV," the committee chaired by Bhagat Singh Koshyari said in its 28th report.

The committee said that it would like to be apprised of the detailed appraisal exercise taken up by the Ministry.
The NACP-IV objectives include reversal of AIDS epidemic through a participative approach, targeting of high risk groups like truckers, migrants, pregnant women, strengthening the response in the country through a cautious and well-defined integration process like testing and counselling among others.