Cabinet approves Rs 23,123 Cr for India COVID-19 Emergency response & preparedness package

New Delhi: Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday approved a new scheme ‘India COVID-19 Emergency Response & Health System Preparedness Package: Phase-II’ amounting to Rs 23,123 crore for the financial year 2021-22.

This scheme aims to accelerate health system preparedness for immediate responsiveness for early prevention, detection and management, with the focus on health infrastructure development including for Paediatric Care and with measurable outcomes.

The Phase-II of the Package has Central Sector (CS) and Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) components.

Under the Central Sector components, the release said, support would be provided to Central Hospitals, AIIMS, and other institutions of national importance under DoHFW (at VMMC & Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi, LHMC & SSKH, Delhi, RML, Delhi, RIMS, Imphal and NEIGRIMS, Shillong, PGIMER, Chandigarh, JIPMER, Puducherry and AIIMS Delhi (existing AIIMSs) and new AIIMSs under PMSSY for repurposing 6,688 beds for COVID-19 management, an official release said.

Besides this, National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) would be strengthened by providing Genome Sequencing machines, besides sanctioning scientific control room, Epidemic Intelligence Services (EIS) and INSACOG Secretariat support.

Under the Central Sector components, support would be provided for implementation of Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) in all the District Hospitals of the Country (presently, it is implemented only in 310 District Hospital).

All district hospitals would implement HMIS through NIC developed E-Hospital and CDAC developed E-‘Shushrutsoftwares’. This will be the biggest impetus for the implementation of the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) at the DHs. This support includes the support provided to the District Hospitals towards augmentation of the hardware capacity," the release said.

"Support would also be provided for expanding the National Architecture of e Sanjeevani Tele-consultation platform to provide upto 5 lakhs teleconsultations per day from the present 50,000 teleconsultations per day. This includes support to the States/UTs to enable teleconsultations with the COVID patients at the COVID Care Centres (CCCs) by strengthening hubs for eSanjeevani teleconsultation in all the districts of the country," it added. (UNI)