-IBN   The statement of the Union Minister of State for Health, Mullappally Ramachandran, the other day that the local bodies had failed to utilise National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) funds comes as no surprise. * The last report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) on the implementation NRHM in Kerala had pointed out in detail the deficiencies such as absence of a perspective plan, accumulation of huge unspent funds in banks,...

I hear that the Planning Commission is planning to push the poverty line down a few notches so that a lot of folks can now come out bobbing up to the surface. This is being considered not out of some malicious attempt to make really poor people look just plain poor so that the real estate price in your area goes up that wee bit, but to “ensure the adequacy...

It will be offered as National Health Package for all common conditions Strongly recommending a re-configuration of the entire health system where the government will have a major role to play, a high level expert group on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) has proposed making health care an entitlement to every citizen. The group suggested that health care be offered as a National Health Package (NHP) covering all common conditions and high-impact health...

Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has called for removal of ceilings on poverty estimation, which restrict the number of poor who can claim benefits from government schemes. His ministry is currently conducting a decennial (once in 10 years) census of the country's rural poor and a similar exercise will be launched for the first time in urban areas soon. But what is becoming a political issue is the planning commission's acceptance of...

Planning Commission affidavit not to be taken as the last word' An embarrassed government swung into damage control mode on Wednesday, in response to widespread criticism of an affidavit filed by the Planning Commission that suggested that an individual income of just Rs 25 a day constituted adequate “private expenditure on food, education and health,” at a time when even the minimum wage was pegged at over Rs.100 a day, the...