Prime Minister Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana: Here's All About The PMASBY Scheme

PMASBY aims to increase the availability of health workers, correct the existing geographical imbalance in the distribution of medical colleges and utilise the infrastructure of district hospitals.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has inaugurated health schemes during his visit to poll-bound state Uttar Pradesh.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate one of the largest pan-India schemes for strengthening healthcare infrastructure across the country known as Pradhan Mantri Aatmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana (PMASBY) on Monday in Uttar Pradesh. "Prime Minister Aatmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana (PMASBY) will be in addition to the National Health Mission," said the Prime Minister's Office.

He will also inaugurate various development projects worth more than Rs 5,200 crore for Varanasi.

Key objectives of PMASBY

The project aims to fill critical gaps in public health infrastructure, especially in critical care facilities and primary care in both urban and rural areas. It will provide support for 17,788 rural health and wellness centres in 10 high focus states. Further, 11,024 urban health and wellness centres will be established in all the states.

Critical care services will be made available in all the districts of the nation with a population of more than 5 lakh, through exclusive critical care hospital blocks, while the remaining districts will be covered through referral services.

People will have access to a full range of diagnostic services in the public healthcare system through a network of laboratories across the nation. Integrated public health labs will be set up in all the districts.

Under PMASBY, a National Institution for One Health, 4 New National Institutes for Virology, a Regional Research Platform for WHO South-East Asia Region, 9 Biosafety Level III laboratories, 5 New Regional National Centre for Disease Control will be set up.

What does PMASBY aim to achieve?

Under PMASBY, the government is aiming to build an IT enabled disease surveillance system by developing a network of surveillance laboratories at block, district, regional and national levels, in metropolitan areas. Integrated Health Information Portal will be expanded to all states and Union territories to connect all public health labs.

PMASBY also aims at the operationalisation of 17 new public health units and the strengthening of 33 existing public health units at points of entry, for effectively detecting, investigating, preventing, and combating public health emergencies and disease outbreaks. It will also work towards building up a trained frontline health workforce to respond to any public health emergency.

The scheme also aims to increase the availability of health professionals, correct the existing geographical imbalance in the distribution of medical colleges and effectively utilise the existing infrastructure of district hospitals.

Nine medical colleges to be inaugurated are situated  in the districts of Siddharthnagar, Etah, Hardoi, Pratapgarh, Fatehpur, Deoria, Ghazipur, Mirzapur and Jaunpur. 8 Medical Colleges have been sanctioned under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme for “Establishment of new medical colleges attached with district/ referral hospitals” and 1 Medical College at Jaunpur has been made functional by the State Government through its own resources.