Despite hundreds of crores available under National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), Andhra Pradesh government failed to set up any new Community Health Centre (CHCs) and Primary Health Centre (PHCs) in the four year period from 2005-06 to 2008-09, says the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG).

“There was a shortfall in setting up of 387 CHCs, 464 PHCs in rural areas and 63 CHCs, 63 PHCs and 303 sub-centres in tribal areas of the state with adverse implications for accessibility of the population to primary healthcare,” says the CAG report for the year 2008-09, tabled in the Assembly on Tuesday.

Despite availability of funds, majority of CHCs and PHCs lacked basic facilities, physical infrastructure was below standards, and mobile medical units were functioning without essential equipment and medical officers, says the report.
The report indicts the state government for “lack of planning and absence of adequate monitoring” in implementing NRHM.

“The programme was implemented without conducting facility surveys and there was no perspective plan for the whole Mission period 2005-12.

Poor NRHM implementation took its toll of all health programmes.

“The Reproductive and Child Health Scheme suffered in terms of institutional delivery care and antenatal care. The objective of converging all the National Disease Control Programmes remained unachieved.”

There was also a shortfall of up to 39 per cent in the immunization programme (second stage of 10-16 age group).

NGOs engaged in the implementation of health programems were inadequately monitored.

As against the Rs 1,603 crore released by the central government under NRHM for the 4-year period 2005-09, only Rs 1,505 crore were utilized, the report says.