 "Union Cabinet, Mandaviya, Tomar")
The Union cabinet Thursday approved a Rs 23,123-crore financial package for improving health infrastructure in the country to fight the Covid pandemic.
Addressing a press conference here after the first meeting of the Union cabinet following its reshuffle on Wednesday, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said the package will be implemented over the next nine months till March 2022.
The meeting was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Mandaviya said this is the second phase of the Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package as the Central government had given Rs 15,000 crore earlier for setting up Covid-dedicated hospitals and health centres across the country.
Mandaviya said that under the new package, the Centre would provide Rs 15,000 crore and states Rs 8,000 crore and the plan would be implemented jointly by them across all the 736 districts of the country to improve medical infrastructure at primary and district health centres.
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Around 240,000 normal medical beds and 20,000 ICU beds would be created of which 20 percent would be specially earmarked for children, he said.
The minister said storage facilities for oxygen and medicines would also be created at district level under the plan.
The plan aims to accelerate health system preparedness for immediate responsiveness for early prevention, detection and management of Covid with the focus on infrastructure development including for Paediatric Care and with measurable outcomes, he said.
"We have to collectively fight the Covid pandemic. The limitation period is maximum nine months. We have to get it done quickly," he said.
"Our duty is to help the states in every possible way," Mandaviya added.
The Health Minister said that the package includes works like what should be done to ensure supply of critical medicines, oxygen supply and to stop the spread of Covid among children in the future.
He also said that through this package, the government aims to install 10,000 litre storage capacity for oxygen in the next nine months in every districts to overcome oxygen shortage.
He also said that in April last year, the government had announced the first emergency Covid package of Rs 15,000 crore, which was utilised well and showed good results.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
