Mysuru: Though the state government gets Rs 14,000 Crore through the excise department annually, if we eliminate or prohibit alcohol in state we can save Rs 22,000 crore which is spent on alcohol related health problems across the state every year, said chief of Swami Vivekananda Movement Dr. B Balasubramaniam.
Delivering his keynote address during the national seminar on “Emerging Rural Health Issues in India” organised by the Centre of Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy at Vignyana Bhavan here on January 10, he said, “Rural health can be changed by strengthening the Anganawadi, Asha and ANM workers. The budget allocation towards health, both from central and state governments, is shrinking. In the USA, 16 percent of the GDP is reserved for healthcare while in our country, both central and state governments, allocated just 0.9 percent of their total budget. Due to the lack of food safety standards in India, three times our national expenditure on health is spent on food related illnesses. What we are eating three times a day is nothing but poison.”
He also added that the Public Health Centres across the state is not properly distributed. “In Mysuru, for every half a kilometre we have a public health centre, 85 public health centres are an excess in Mysuru. If we go to North Karnataka including Bagalkot, Bidar and Yadgir we need to travel nearly 10 km to find one public health centre, where they have to serve more than 130 people every day,” he said.
He also said that all PHCs get the same amount of funding regardless of how many patients they receive. As a solution, he suggested that per capita based funding be provided to the PHCs.
C Basavaraju, Vice Chancellor (In-charge), University of Mysore (UoM), who also spoke on the occasion said, “We cannot think of progress until and unless health related issues are addressed at rural areas. Progress of the society, health and economy go hand in hand”.
Bharathi, Registrar of UoM, who also spoke on the occasion, said that people are not only suffering from malnutrition but also bad food habits.
