Union Cabinet approves second phase of COVID-19 Emergency Response Package

The Union Cabinet has approved a new scheme 'India COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness Package: Phase-II amounting to 23 thousand 123 crore rupees for financial year 2021-22.

Addressing media after the Cabinet meeting in New Delhi last evening, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said, this scheme aims at accelerating health system preparedness for immediate responsiveness for early prevention, detection and management, with the focus on health infrastructure development.

It also includes Paediatric Care and with measurable outcomes. He said, phase -2 will be implemented from 1st of July this year to 31st March 2022 with central and state share. He said, the Centre's share of the project will be 15 thousand crore rupees and State's share will be 8,123 crore rupees.

The Health Minister said, the efforts are aimed at strengthening district and sub district capacity for an effective and rapid response to the COVID pandemic. He said, under the new scheme, States and Union Territories would be supported to create Paediatric units in all 736 districts and also to establish Paediatric Centre of Excellence. Mr Mandaviya said, they will also be supported to augment 20 thousand ICU beds in the public healthcare system out of which 20 per cent will be Pediatric ICU beds. Mr Mandaviya also informed that Undergraduate and Post graduate medical interns and final year MBBS, BSc, and GNM nursing students will be engaged for effective COVID management.

The package will also provide support for installation of help to install 1050 numbers of Liquid Medical Oxygen Storage Tanks with Medical Gas Pipeline System (MGPS), with an aim to support at least one such unit per district. With a view to augment the existing feet of ambulances, 8 thousand 800 ambulances will be added under the package. Under the package, support would also be provided for expanding the National Architecture of eSanjeevani Tele-consultation platform to provide upto 5 lakhs tele-consultations per day from the present 50 thousand Tele-consultations per day.