Rural health infra not enough to meet population norm: report

The rural health care infrastructure in the country is not sufficient to meet the current population norm, according to Rural Health Statistics 2014-15 released by the government today.
The figures of rural health infrastructure in tribal areas indicate that there is a shortfall of 6,796 sub-centers, 1,267 Primary Health Centres (PHCs) and 309 Community Health Centres (CHCs).
"While the sub-centres, PHCs and CHCs in rural areas have increased in number in 2014-15, the current numbers are not sufficient to meet their population norm," the report says.
There are 1,53,655 sub-centres, 25,308 PHCs and 5,396 CHCs functioning in the country.
In the past ten yeas, the total number of sub-centers, PHCs and CHCs added throughout the country remain at 7,629, 2072 and 2050 respectively.

"Number of existing sub-centres increased from 1,46,026 in 2005 to 1,53,655 by March 2015, which includes significant increase in the figure in states like Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tripura and Uttarakhand," it said.
While there are still 21.4 per cent of the sub-centers that are operating from rented building, the percentage of such PHCs and CHCs is 3.9 and 0.6 respectively.