Within weeks of getting bail from the Supreme Court in connection with charges of sedition, human rights activist Binayak Sen has been made member of the Planning Commission's Steering Committee on Health, which will advise the panel on the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2012-2017).Binayak Sen, who was released on bail from the Raipur jail last month, will, based on his experience of having worked as a paediatrician in Chhattisgarh's tribal belt, provide his input on the health of tribal children. He will represent the Bilaspur-based healthcare organisation, Jan Swasthya Sahyog.
The 40-member Committee on Health is chaired by Syeda Hameed and is expected to submit its draft report by September 30 and the final report by October 31. It is mandated to suggest effective initiatives for the monitoring and evaluation of health programmes and recommend measurable indicators for the 12th Plan.
The steering committee will review the National Health Policy, 2002, and explore the possibility of adopting the Right to Health as an approach with special focus on women, children, life-cycle care and preventive and curative healthcare. It will assess the need to continue the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in the 12th Five Year Plan and review the situation of the healthcare provided in urban and rural areas, by the government as well as by the voluntary, private and joint sectors after the launching of the NRHM. It will study the prospects of an overarching National Health Mission that would subsume the NRHM and the yet-to-be-launched National Urban Health Mission.
Recommendations under spotlight
The steering committee will deliberate upon the given recommendations on an adverse sex ratio and child sex ratio, maternal health and nutrition, child health and nutrition, elderly persons, population stabilisation, occupational diseases, conflict and related diseases including mental health.
Divided into six working groups, each of which will study health insurance, human resources in the health sector, public health services, and medical education, on the basis of the inputs of the High Level Expert Group. It will review the drug and food regulatory mechanism in the country to ensure access to quality and safe drugs and wholesome food in the country.
Serving and former senior bureaucrats of the Centre, former and serving advisers to the Planning Commission, Principal Secretaries of States, representatives of the Indian Medical Association, the Confederation on Indian Industry, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India, have been put on the Committee. Dileep Mavlankar of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, will advise the Committee on governance.
The civil society representation, of which Dr. Sen forms a part, include Sanjoy Hazarika, managing trustee of the CNES, Assam; Abhijit Das, Centre for Health and Social Justice; Shiraz Prabhu, social activist; Shejo Bose, Janani; Lalitha George, Tribal health Initiative; Sangeetha Reddy; Devi Shetty; Srinath Reddy, president, Public Health Foundation of India; and K.S. Jacob, Christian Medical College, among others.
Courtesy : The Hindu
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