TB to be contained soon, claims govt

Admitting that the programme to eradicate tuberculosis from the country had become "sluggish" for a while, Government today claimed it has made several new interventions and will be able contain the disease very soon.
"Government of India has signed an agreement with the International Development Association (IDA) to support components under the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) for USD 100 million for the period between April 2014 and April 2017 for procurement of drugs, diagnostics and services.
"The sanctioned funds have been spent only on recommended activities and as per norms. The booked expenditure up to March 2016 is 14.42 million USD," Health Minister Jagat Prasad Nadda said in a reply in Rajya Sabha amid noisy scenes in the House over the Uttarakhand issue.

The minister said that upon reviewing the pace of expenditure and utilisation of the sanctioned amount, it was decided by the Department of Health and Family Welfare in 2015-16 to restrucutre the disbursement mechanism under a hybrid model where only a portion of the loan is linked to procurement and the balance is linked with other programme- based indicators for disbursement of funds.
He said this restructuring has been approved by the government and World Bank recently and under the hybrid model and the claims of reimbursement of another USD 22 million have been processed.
Replying to a question about the impact of the tuberculosis programme and how long will it continue, Nadda said "this continuous programme is running. We have made new interventions. The programme had got a big sluggish in between. We have tried to rectify it. Many new interventions have been made and very soon, we will be able to curb tuberculosis."

Nadda said that 90 per cent of budget on this programme was now to be spent on procurement of drugs, five per cent on procurement of commodities and five per cent for services.
"We have made a vibrant programme where we have restructured the whole system and the fund is being utilised," he said.