Providing healthcare services in remote rural and tribal areas Public health is a State subject, the primary responsibility to provide quality health care services to the people including in rural, tribal and hilly areas lies with State/UT Governments. To supplement the efforts of State Governments of improving the healthcare services, particularly in rural areas including hilly & tribal areas, National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was launched in 2005. NRHM has now been subsumed as a Sub Mission of the overarching National Health Mission (NHM) with the National Urban Health Mission as the other Sub Mission. The healthcare services in tribal areas of the country vary from state to state. Under the National Health Mission (NHM), support is provided to States/UTs to strengthen their health systems including for setting up/upgrading public health facilities, augmenting health human resource on contractual basis, drugs and equipment, diagnostics, Ambulances, Mobile Medical Units, etc for provision of equitable, affordable healthcare to all its citizens including the poor and vulnerable population including tribal population based on requirements posed by the States in their Programme Implementation Plans. To ensure focus on quality, States are also supported for implementation of National Quality Assurance Framework and Kayakalp. Under NHM, all tribal majority districts whose composite health index is below the State average have been identified as High Priority Districts (HPDs) and these districts are expected to receive more resources per capita under the NHM as compared to the rest of the districts in the State. These districts also receive focused attention and supportive supervision. Norms for infrastructure, Human resource, ASHAs, MMUs etc. under NHM are relaxed for tribal and hilly areas. The Health Minister, Shri J P Nadda stated this in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha here today.
