In a written reply in the House, Minister of State for Health and Family Affairs Sudip Bandyopadhyay tabled a report on number of such cases from all the states of the country last year.
After UP, Maharashtra and Bihar recorded 17,892 and 17,801 cases respectively.
"Under National Leprosy Eradication Program (NLEP), target of leprosy elimination i.E. Less than one case per 10,000 population has already been achieved at national level in 2005. Now the government is concentrating on achieving elimination of leprosy at district level," Bandyopadhyay said.
He also informed the House about several initiatives undertaken by the government for early detection and eradication of leprosy.
Replying to a question on vacant posts in Rural Healthcare Centres (RHC), Bandyopadhyay said a total of 43,435 vacancies have been detected against the sanctioned strength of 2,39,472 seats.
In reply to a separate question on cases of spurious drugs in the country, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad said, "The number of samples declared as spurious in the last three years do no indicate any rise in cases of spurious drugs in the country."
According to the report tabled in the House, a total of 133 such cases were registered during 2011-12, while last year (2010-11) 95 such instances were recorded.
