New Delhi: In a move aimed at providing affordable healthcare facilities to people living in hilly and coastal areas, the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare is mulling to start air ambulance cum air dispensary services.
According to sources, the Health Ministry has sought additional funds from the Finance Ministry to operationalise the project, mainly in north-eastern states and coastal parts of the country.
"Starting air dispensaries require is a costlier affair. So the ministry has urged Finance Ministry to consider the request to increase the budget allocations for the project," the sources said.
The move has been initiated to give a fillip to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's India's Act East Policy as northeasters states would play a key role in engagement with South East Asian countries.
The objective of starting the helicopter-based dispensary/OPD service in far-flung and remote areas is to provide medical facilities to people living in those areas who didn't get quality medical services.
The proposal was first initiated by Union Ministry of Development of Northeast (DONER), which has already contributed Rs 25 crore as part of the initial funding for the project.
"The Health Ministry department would start air ambulance as well air dispensary services at earliest," a Health Ministry official said, adding, "The project would kick-start from the capital cities of Manipur and Meghalaya as both the cities (Imphal and Shillong), have premier post-graduate medical institutes from where specialist doctors would be able to move into the helicopter and hold a dispensary/OPD in different locations across the eight northeastern states."
Highlighting that nearly 1/3rd of India's population did not have access to proper healthcare facilities, DoNER Minister Jitendra Singh had said that the proposal pushed by the DoNER ministry has been 'accepted and is in the final stages of the process in the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation.
After the successful implementation of the project in the Northeast, it would be replicated in other hill states having difficult topography like Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
According to the official, three twin-engine helicopters are planned to be placed for initial operation on six routes in the region around Imphal, Guwahati and Dibrugarh.
The official further said that helicopters used as dispensary would also be utilised for transporting sick patients, requiring admission, to a city hospital.
The northeast region comprises of eight states --- Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.