Amid fight with Centre, Punjab tweaks mohalla clinics policy

CHANDIGARH: After being criticised by the central government over branding of Ayushman Bharat health and wellness centres as “aam aadmi clinics” and the ongoing dispute over their funding, the Punjab government has now decided to upgrade to aam aadmi clinics only those subsidiary health centres, or rural dispensaries, that are not co-located with Ayushman Bharat centres.
These dispensaries come under the rural development and panchayats department.
The AAP government has so far opened 580 such clinics in three phases, many of them at primary health centres that also had centres set up under the Ayushman Bharat programme, a flagship scheme of the central government aimed at delivering primary healthcare. Since the launch of the aam aadmi clinics, where medicines and 41 diagnostic tests are provided free, the AAP government claims that more than 25 lakh patients have benefited.
However, the latest decision will not affect aam aadmi clinics already functioning from the same location as Ayushman Bharat centres.
The Centre had stoppedfunds under the National Health Mission for Ayushman Bharat wellness centres in the state since the last quarter of 2022-23. The approved budget for 2022-23 for Punjab was around Rs 900 crore, of which the state was issued roughly Rs 450 crore.
The rest has remained stuck as the Union health ministry wrote to the Punjab government asking it to remove the branding of aam aadmi clinics from Ayushman Bharat wellness centres. The central government has not released the pending funds nor responded to the state government’s request to allow collective “hybrid /fused” branding. Speaking at a rally in Patiala on Friday, Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya said, “In Punjab, the health and wellness centres are being run with mostly central funding, but AAP chose to rename these aam aadmi clinics to promote the party, which is against the set rules. As the Punjab government wasn’t complying with the rules despite repeated warnings, we had to shut down the scheme in Punjab. ”
The Shiromani Akali Dal claimed on Friday that CM Bhagwant Mann’s insistence on changing the nomenclature of Ayushman Bharat wellness centres to aam aadmi clinics and plastering his picture on them was costing the state’s health sector dearly as the central government had denied it Rs 800 crore under this scheme.