After the Union Agriculture Ministry, it is the turn of Union Health Ministry to look up to the cooperative lender NCDC to boost healthcare infrastructure across the states in the wake of Covid 19 upsurge.
A high-level meeting of Union Health Minister Rajesh Bhushan and Empowered Group has sought help from the co-operative lender National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) for firming up healthcare infrastructure.
Talking to Indian Cooperative, NCDC Managing Director Sundeep Nayak explained “Under the Ayushman Sahakar NCDC stands committed to lend Rs 10,000 crore to co-operatives either to set up new healthcare facilities or to upgrade the existing ones.”
“The Health Ministry has asked NCDC to join the fight against the Virus and we are eager to lend financial assistance to any co-operative hospital should it need that”, underlined Nayak. There are close to 51 co-operative hospitals with around 5000 beds in the cooperative sector. There is a need to raise the figure with a greater number of hospitals and a higher number of beds, felt Nayak.
Nayak said the 18 Regional Offices of NCDC spread across the states, would act as nodal point for any cooperative, planning to set up a new hospital or upgrade its infrastructure. The co-op can approach the Regional office which would process its application and facilitate the approval of financial assistance. “There is a special emphasis on Covid care”, Nayak clarified.
The meeting of Union Health Minister Rajesh Bhushan and Empowered Group named NCDC and asked it to repurpose the health care facilities spread across 18 regional offices for creation of Covid facilities.
It bears recall that NCDC launched Ayushman Sahakar last year in October. Under the scheme, NCDC would extend term loans to prospective cooperative societies to help them play an important role in creation of healthcare infrastructure in the country. As per the scheme formulated by NCDC, the amount of Rs 10, 000 crore will be given to cooperative bodies.
Earlier, MoS Parshottam Rupala said “NCDC’s scheme is aimed at strengthening farmers welfare activities by the Central Government. The Ayushman Sahakar scheme would revolutionize the way healthcare delivery takes place in rural areas”. Rupala also gave a call to the cooperatives to take up healthcare services as an activity for farmers.
NCDC’s scheme aligns itself with the focus of the National Health Policy, 2017, covering the health systems in all their dimensions- investments in health, organization of healthcare services, access to technologies, development of human resources, encouragement of medical pluralism, affordable health care to farmers etc.
