India needs 6,800 more hospitals, NRHM has many glitches: Survey

New Delhi,  (IANS) India needs over 6,800 more hospitals in rural areas to provide basic health facilities to people, the annual Economic Survey released Thursday said. The survey also said that several glitches in the flagship National Rural Health Mission needed to be ironed out to improve health infrastructure.

"There is still a shortage of 4,477 primary healthcare centres and 2,337 community healthcare centres as per the 2001 population norms," the survey said.

This means the requirement for hospitals will be much more if the population figure in 2010 is taken into account.

The annual survey presented in parliament said: "Almost 29 percent of the existing health infrastructure is in rented buildings. Poor upkeep and maintenance, and high absenteeism of manpower in the rural areas are the main problems in the health delivery system."

It said NRHM is trying to address all these problems but needs to iron out several glitches to implement the scheme which has been in operation since 2005.

The survey also said that through the mission, the government aimed at bettering the health infrastructure vis-a-vis population, but the "ratio of population to health centres remained low with the targeted number of new health centres not being established".

"Basic facilities were still absent in many health centres with many PHCs (primary health centres) and CHCs (community health centres) being unable to provide guaranteed service such as in-patient services, operation theatres, labour rooms, pathological tests, X-ray facilities and emergency care."

The survey said: "An assessment of the health related indicators would suggest that significant gains have been made over the years. However, India fares poorly in most of the indicators in comparison with developing countries like China and Sri Lanka.

"The progress in health has been quite uneven, across regions, gender, as well as space."

Underlining some NRHM shortcomings that have also been pointed out by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), the survey said: "Release of funds to state health societies and consequently to district and block levels require further streamlining to ensure prompt and effective utilisation of funds".

The survey said: "Village level health and sanitation committees were still to be constituted in nine states".

It also said that in nine states, the stock of contraceptives and other medicines as mandated by the NRHM was not found and there was a shortage of service providers at different levels.

The survey also said that efforts are on to better the indicator and the infant mortality rate is expected to reach 30 per every 100,000 live births against the current level of 53 by 2012.