Rajouri, June 23: Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Ghulam Nabi Azad Saturday announced to give special incentives to the doctors in Jammu and Kashmir for serving in rural areas, besides assuring increase in the central funds for the state under National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) from earlier eighty five percent to ninety percent.
He made the announcements at a public meeting at Nowshehra to mark the seventh death anniversary of former minister and senior Congress leader Master Beli Ram.
Azad, a former Chief Minister of the state, said that as an extraordinary measure to improve the healthcare services in Jammu and Kashmir, centre has decided to pay special incentives to the doctors serving in rural areas over and above their salary. He said the sop was being offered to encourage doctors to serve in the rural areas who generally avoid posting in the hilly and far-flung areas.
The Union Minister also announced that henceforth Jammu and Kashmir would get ninety percent central share under the flagship National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) while the state government had to contribute only ten percent of the total allocations. He said in other states of the country central share under the scheme was only seventy five percent.
Azad said the Government is already providing free vaccination for around eight types of infections but now it aims to provide free medicines to people especially to senior citizens.
Responding to the local demands, Azad also announced a hundred bedded hospital for Nowshehra to be funded by the centre. “The existing 30 bedded hospital would be upgraded to 100 bed capacity for which the funds will be provided by the centre” Azad announced.
Paying tributes to the late leader Master Beli Ram, Azad said that throughout his life he served his people and fought for their rights. He said that Master Beli Ram was the real leader of masses who represented this border district at every forum.
Deputy Chief Minister, Tara Chand, Minister for Tourism, Nawang Rigzin Jora, Minister of State for Cooperative, Dr Manohar Lal Sharma and MoS Shabir Khan also paid rich tributes to the departed leader, besides highlighting the achievements of the coalition government.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 23 Jun 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 23 Jun 2012 18:30:00 GMT
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