Nagaland’s Minister for Health & Family Welfare, P Paiwang Konyak, met Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman at North Block office, New Delhi on Tuesday.

During the meeting, he indicated that the health system in the state has been steadily progressing and has strengthened to some extent in the recent past. Despite the progress, Konyak relayed that the responsiveness of the health system to people’s needs, and growing expectations is still far from satisfactory, and many challenges are yet to be resolved, mainly due to poor health infrastructure including housing for the staff, shortage of skilled manpower, problems associated with difficult terrain and poor road connectivity etc.

Konyak asserted it is the desire of the State Government to provide affordable and accessible health care to its citizen and requested the Union Finance Minister to consider the External Aided Project of PPR ID-11761 Nagaland Health Systems Strengthening Project which has been focused mainly to fill up the gaps of Infrastructures of Health Centres, Quarters for health workers etc. He further said that the sanction accorded under Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PM-ABHIM) and India COVID-19 Emergency Response and Health System Preparedness (ECRP) etc are for a specific Project and could not cover for the overall needs of the health sectors.

Further, Konyak said that with the success and positive impact of the Nagaland Health Project, funded by the World Bank, the State Government has further proposed for the World Bank assistance project amounting to US$42.74 million to support the State for construction of District Hospitals in newly created districts, construction of staff quarters, strengthening of District Hospitals for delivery of assured services.

He also said that the National Health Mission (NHM) which is the main funding for improvement of the health sectors Nagaland could avail hardly 50% of the Annual Resource Envelope over the years and requested the Union FM to consider for release of fund in two instalments instead of four instalments.

The Union Finance Minister, during the meeting, stressed on the importance of timely contribution of State Share to avail 90% grant from the Centre.

Minister Konyak was accompanied by Commissioner & Secretary, H&FW, Y. Kikheto Sema, IAS.

Read more: Nagaland Health Minister Paiwang meets World Bank Country Director