National Rural Health Mission NRHM is a health program for improving
health care delivery across rural India. The mission, initially mooted for 7 years (2005-2012), is run by the
Ministry of Health. The scheme proposes a number of new mechanisms for healthcare delivery including training local residents as
Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA), and the
Janani Surakshay Yojana (motherhood protection program). It also aims at improving
hygiene and
sanitation infrastructure. Noted economists Ajay Mahal and
Bibek Debroy have called it "the most ambitious rural health initiative ever". Under the mission, health funding had increased from 27,700 crores in 2004-05 to 39,000 crores in 2005-06 (from 0.95% of
GDP to 1.05%). As of 2009, economists noted that "the mid-term appraisal of the NRHM has found that there has been a significant improvement in health indicators even in this short period". However, in many situations, the state level apparatus have not been able to deploy the additional funds, often owing to inadequacies in the
Panchayati Raj functioning. Fund utilization in many states is around 70%.
Total Sanitation Campaign Total Sanitation Campaign is aimed at ensuring sanitation facilities in rural areas. The main goal of Total Sanitation Campaign is to eradicate the practice of open defecation by 2017. To give fillip to this endeavour, Government of India has launched Nirmal Gram Puraskar. Communities are facilitated to conduct their own appraisal and analysis of open defecation (OD) and take their own action to become ODF (open defecation free). CLTS (Community-Led Total Sanitation) focuses on the behavioural change needed to ensure real and sustainable improvements. It invests in community mobilisation instead of hardware, and shifting the focus from toilet construction for individual households to the creation of ’open defecation-free’ villages. Union Rural Development Minister Mr Jairam Ramesh says that new
Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan will ensure the extension of the sanitation scheme to both Above Poverty Line and Below Poverty Line families. Subsidy amount for the sanitation scheme is also being raised from the present level of 3,000 rupees. ==Urban Planning==