The Health minister Dhan Singh Rawat has directed the officers to activate village health and sanitation committees in the State. There are 16,674 such committees in 7,950 village Panchayats of the State which are largely inactive at present. Rawat has ordered the chief medical officers (CMOs) to activate the committees in their respective districts. The minister gave the order while taking a review of the state health department at his residence here on Friday. He said that village health and sanitation committees would now be activated and regular meetings of these committees would be held which would be chaired by the village Pradhans. Rawat said the CMOs have been asked to compulsorily conduct meetings of these committees every three months. The objective of activating these committees is to ensure that the benefit of the health services reach to the general public. He said that in these meetings working  plans for sanitation, nutrition, Ayushman village, TB, Kala Azar, tobacco free village, sickle cell anaemia and hundred percent institutional deliveries will be prepared. The minister said that the officers of the health department will remain present in the meetings of these committees and the public representatives will also be invited in the meetings. Rawat said that the CMOs, senior officers of the health department such as director health, director medical health, additional secretary health, MD NHM and secretary health will attend 10 meetings each. The minister added that local MLAs and he will also attend the meetings of the committees in villages.

 In the meeting Rawat directed that the vacant posts of ward boys in the hospitals should be filled by outsourcing agencies.

 The additional secretary of health Amandeep Kaur, director general of health Dr Vinita Shah, director of medical education Dr Ashutosh Sayana and others attended the meeting.