The Jharkhand government has taken a policy decision to standardize the selection of the venue for the construction of any kind of community health centres.
As per the order issued by the health department, the permission of the department will be required to construct hospitals, community health centres and likes in districts.
In the letter, the department expressed concerns that in the name of expanding health infrastructure buildings are constructed without keeping in the mind the availability and recruitment of workforce to man and manage the said health center.
The department said that such constructions result in wasteful expenditure of resources and the building remains unused.
Additional Chief Secretary Health, Arun Kumar Singh, who issued the directives to all districts said that now onward for construction of any building prior permission of the department will be required.
The Additional CS said that the guidelines of the Indian Public Health Standard (IPHS) will have to be followed for any new building plan.
He said that often such unplanned buildings remain unattended and ultimately collapse in the course of time due to lack of maintenances since these were never used for the purpose constructed by the local administration.
Outlining the IPHS he said that the local administration will have to assess the requirement for setting a health infrastructure at the given place. And once the plan is found viable the proper recruitment and arrangements of the workforce required will have to be done.
The departmental sources said that recently a survey was undertaken to identify such community health centers across 24 districts which have not been since their construction.
“Number of such buildings is very high. Developing health infrastructure especially in rural areas is the key priority of the government hence the allocation and use of the funds will have to be rationalized. There is no need to construct buildings that have no use,” said an official of the department.