Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad along with top officials today met in a bid to iron out the differences on the plan document on health.
"We sat together and discussed the larger issues. These are not personal issues, these are policy issues. We have sorted out the issues," Azad told PTI after the meeting, adding that the Secretaries of the Planning Commission and Health Ministry will sit together to sort the remaining issues on the basis of the discussions held between him and Ahluwalia today.
Ahluwalia along with Plan panel member Syeda Hameed and Secretary Sindhushree Khullar went to Azad's office in Nirman Bhawan and held an hour-long meeting with him, where Health Secretary P K Pradhan and other officials were also present.
Though the total outlay of Rs 3 lakh crore has been finalised by the Commission, differences between the two persist over policy implementation.
Sources say the Health Ministry is insisting that its role be "paramount" and wants the existing health delivery system to continue instead of the proposed changes of directing the money directly to states as central assistance with Planning Commission monitoring it.
Sources in the Plan panel said the plan of corporatisation of health by creating competition between public and prvate health care providers to ensure proper delivery of services is also being opposed by the Ministry, which is also not happy on striking down of its proposed National Urban Health Mission.
Admitting that the matter had escalated, a top Planning Commission official said the issues have largely been resolved now and a "consensus document is likely very soon".
The Planning Commission is seeking to limit the Health Ministry's role to merely "advisory" and wants to directly monitor the health schemes where thousands of crores is being spent. It is also pushing the case of private healthcare providers in order to create healthy competition, the sources say.