Shimla, January 28
Even as the female sex ratio in the hill state has shown signs of improvement, to ensure that the upswing is maintained, the government will launch a special campaign focusing on “Beti Anmol Hai” in the 44 blocks that have lowest sex ratio of the state.

With the sex ratio as per civil registration system (CRS) data having fallen to 898 in 1993, efforts are being made to curb this disturbing trend, which has become a malady in the neighbouring states of Haryana and Punjab. The latest available figure of 2009 has brought some relief as the sex ratio has improved and touched 922. It was 904 as per CRS data in 2008.

Keen to ensure that the sex ratio shows signs of further improvement, the State Health and Family Welfare Department has decided to launch an intensive awareness and education programme in 44 blocks of the state which have the lowest sex ratio. Even as there are clear indications that the sex ratio has declined more in the areas bordering Punjab and Haryana, Kangra tops the list as its 15 blocks figure on the list of the worst affected.

Five blocks each of Una, Solan and Hamirpur have also been included as these parts have borders with Punjab and Haryana. Surprisingly, Shimla district, which does not have an inter-state boundary, too has five of its blocks falling on this list of 44 blocks. There are two blocks each in Bilaspur and Mandi district where the problem of low sex ratio is there.

Another interesting trend being reflected is that the problem is far more conspicuous in the urban areas than in the interior and rural parts. Clear examples of this is the fact that in Sirmour district, which shares a border with Haryana and Uttrakhand, Nahan and Paonta have the lowest ratio.

The folk media groups will give performances with a strong social message at the 44 gram sabhas on February 6 so that people can be made aware of the adverse repercussions of the trend in the long run. “During the next 10 days, these folk groups will give 440 performances in the districts where the problem is more grave than other parts,” confirmed an official.

Between February 20 and 30, seminars will be held on girlchild and the importance for checking this trend, which has gone down drastically during the nineties. On International Women’s Day on March 8, a state-level convention will be organised which will mark the launch of the second phase of “Beti Anmol Hai” campaign.

Shimla, January 28
Having achieved the target of 67 per cent institutional deliveries in the hill state, the facility of free deliveries under the Maitri Sewa Yojna will now be extended to 100 government hospitals which will help in further improvement of the infant mortality rate (IMR).

Addressing a press conference here today, Health and Family Welfare Minister Rajiv Bindal said it was on account of the facilities extended by the government that the IMR had gone down to 22 from 34. “It is creditable for a hill state like Himachal to improve its IMR to 22 when the national figure stands at 55 per 1000 births,” he remarked.

Bindal said the facility, where the entire travelling, diet and medicines expenses for all was borne by the government, would be now be extended to 100 hospitals from the present 75 by March this year. He added that the aim was to achieve a target of 80 per cent institutional deliveries which would further improve the IMR.

The minister said the objective was to provide best medical facilities and more so at the most affordable prices, especially to the weaker section. A sum of Rs 8.56 crore had been spent so far on providing critical care and other treatment to people under the health insurance scheme where 2.40 lakh below poverty line (BPL) families had been provided smart card, he said.

He disclosed that 38 medicines had been identified and provided in hospitals, especially for the BPL families on which Rs 3 crore had been spent. He added that every patient was being provided free treatment for 24 hours irrespective of which category he belonged to.

Bindal said the Atal Swasthya Sewa Yojna had proved beneficial and 25 new ambulances were being added to the fleet to cover three more districts of Mandi, Kullu and Chamba. He added that after the winters, a proposal would be made to cover even the two tribal districts.

He said the endeavour of the government was to have 400 MBBS seats in the state to be able to tide over the shortage of doctors.

Shimla, January 28
All major 20 zonal and district hospitals in the state will be linked online by February. It will help hospitals retrieving the case history of a patient from any of these health institutions, thereby providing a ready database of the disease pattern and patient load in the state.

Barring Dehradun in Uttarakhand, no other government hospital in the country has adopted this kind of a hospital management information system where complete details of a patient and laboratory tests can be checked at the click of a mouse. This system is followed by most corporate hospitals, which enables a doctor to check the case history and laboratory test reports on the computer at any time.

The Health and Family Welfare Department has introduced this system in the local Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital and once it is standardised, it will be introduced in 20 other major hospitals where the bed strength is more than 100 or the outdoor patient load is high.

“A sum of Rs 6.5 crore will be spent on this scheme under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) during 2011-12 which will not only prove to be cost-effective but is also being developed within the state to match our requirement,” revealed Rakesh Kanwar, director, NRHM.

He said once this kind of integrated software was introduced in all 20 hospitals, it would be possible to get the medical history, including the test reports of a patient, from any of the institutes, as they would have intra-linkage. This would also make it very convenient for the patients as after getting a test done, their report would be fed in the computer and the doctor could access it directly without the patient having to collect it personally, he added.

The biggest handicap being faced in implementing this project with the help of National Health System Centre of the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry is making the doctors, nurses and other paramedical staff computer savvy. The system will also help the Health Department to have a ready database about the disease pattern, endemic areas, indoor and outdoor patient load and the revenue generated from the tests undertaken in any hospital in a single day or in a month.

Officials pointed that this would also help in policy making and distribution of funds and other government resources depending on patient load and needs of a particular area.

Solan,January 28
With the state government finally appointing a drug controller to strengthen the drug control administration, the first step towards strengthening the regulatory mechanism appears to have been taken.

Though the state had an investment worth several thousand crores in the pharmaceutical sector after the 2003 Central industrial package, its failure in appointing a drug controller had projected a weak image of its regulatory mechanism at the national level.

Navneet Marwaha, who was earlier the assistant drug controller, has been apppointed as the drug controller. Talking to The Tribune, Marwaha, after assuming charge today said the maintenance of quality in drug manufacturing , crackdown on quacks and curbing abuse of drugs, would be the priority areas. He said they would ensure the availability of quality drugs to the common man.

Welcoming the decision president of the Himachal Drug Manufacturers Association, Sanjay Guleria, said it would strengthen the department as it was a long-pending demand. Thanking Chief Minister PK Dhumal and Health Minister Dr Rajiv Bindal for apppointing the drug controller he said it would also make the state's position sound before the national-level authorities who had been criticising the state till now for not having a drug controller.

It is worth mentioning that nearly 600 pharmaceutical units had set up their operations in the state and it had acquired the sobriquet of being the pharmaceutical hub of Asia. The ill-staffed drug control administration had become a cause of concern for the state as it failed to effectively regulate the units. The government had also decided to fill four posts of drug inspector and this step would help strengthen the regulatory mechanism.

The appointment of a drug controller had also opened promotional avenues for drug inspectors who had failed to get any promotion despite putting in several years of service. It would also help create a three-tier system where drug controller, assistant drug controller and drug inspectors would be able to perform different duties. Such systems already exist in the neighbouring states like Haryana. 

Dharamsala, January 28
Shanta Kumar, national vice-president of the BJP and Rajya Sabha member, said Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's statement on black money stashed abroad was merely aimed at diverting the attention of millions of countrymen.

He was reacting to the statement of Pranab Mukherjee that the UPA government was trying to get the details of the tax-evaders who had deposited their money in Swiss banks.

In a press statement issued here today, Shanta Kumar said the UPA government was deliberately mingling the issue of black money with tax evasion. He said the huge amount kept in Swiss banks by some Indians had been termed by the Swiss government as “stolen property”, and this had been clearly indicated by the Swiss authorities as the amount had been collected through illegal and corrupt practices.

Shanta Kumar said Pranab Mukherjee's agenda to acquire the names of Indian depositors as revealed in the media was utopian and would not fetch any fruitful results for the country.

He said Linchestien government had refused to reveal the names of the Swiss bank account holders as the treaty between India and Swiss governments need further ratification by the European countries.

Shanta Kumar said the UN convention against corruption was the only international legal instrument to recover back the money from tax-haven countries. He said this historical Convention had been signed by 140 countries and ratified by 126 countries, including Switzerland.

Surprisingly, despite signing the Convention in 2005, India had not yet ratified the treaty. He said by not ratifying the convention, the country had been deprived of legal cooperation by the member countries. He said after ratification, some of the countries had started to recover the amount.

He urged the present government to immediately ratify the UN Convention against corruption so as to pressurise the tax-haven countries to return the money to the originating countries.

Shanta Kumar said the government was deliberately evading the issue of ratifying the Convention as no mention of the Convention had been made in the recent statement of the Finance Minister. He said this issue was time and again raised by him in the Rajya Sabha, but no response had been given by the government.

"Even the Prime Minister did not bother to reply my letters in which I had asked the government to justify why India was not initiating the ratification process despite the fact that 126 member countries had already ratified the Convention," he added.

Shimla, January 28
Despite children up to the age of 18 years constituting 40 per cent of the population, only 14.14 per cent of the total state budget has been spent on this segment during the five-year period from 2004 onwards.

These are the findings of a survey conducted by the Himachal Pradesh Voluntary Health Association (HPVHA) to ascertain the benefit and extent of the state budget being spent on children under schemes in various government departments.

“Interestingly, it was found that the budgetary allocation for children was the lowest at a mere 10.8 per cent in 2008-09 when Himachal budget saw a biggest rise,” said Narender Shrama, executive director, HPVHA.

He said the five-year review of the budget for children pertains to spending under various schemes in the Departments of Education, Health and Family Welfare, Social Justice and Empowerment, Tribal Development and Planning and Backward Areas. “I am of the opinion that the Himachal government is spending inadequate amount for the overall child development except in the field of education,” he said.

He, however, added that several programmes for children were not accounted for in the state budget as the money came directly from the Centre under schemes like the Universal Immunization, the State AIDS Control Society, the Blindness Control Society, the Reproductive and Child Health and the National Rural Health Mission.

The population of children between the age of 0 and 14 years in Himachal is 24 lakh which is almost 40 per cent of the total population. As per the survey, during the first four years from 2004 to 08, the budgetary allocation for children consistently rose, growing at 16 per cent except in the last year.

The budget outlay for education in HP has increased by 110.19 per cent from Rs 953.01 crore in 2004-05 to Rs 2003.18 crore in 2008-09. Schemes for elementary education have got the major share of 65.64 per cent, followed by 34.36 per cent for secondary education.

The study also highlights the aspect that almost 58 per cent of the children up to the age of three years are anaemic and the percentage of child workers has gone up from 5.5 per cent in 1991 to 8.6 per cent in 2001.

Manali, January 28
Ketaki Manoj Sathaye of Kirti Kala Mandir, Nashik, was crowned ‘the Winter Queen’ at the Winter Carnival- 2011 here last evening. Aarti Sharma of Solan, was adjudged the first runner-up, and Khushbu of Samvad group, Mandi, became the second runner- up at the five- day carnival.

Results: Personality Contest (men) : Gunjan,Punjab, 1; Sukhvinder Singh , Ludhiana, 2; and Rohit Bhushan, 3.

Fashion Show : Kirti kala mandir, Nasik, 1; Sarswati kala manch, 2; and Ek rang, Rojkot, 3.

Jhanki (open) : Sarswati kala sangam, Chichoga , 1; Jagriti kala manch, Manali, 2; and Lady willingdon hospital, Manali, 3.

Jhanki (Mahila Mandal) : Mandal davgarh,Goshal, 1; Narayan mahila mandal, Aleo, 2; and Aastha mahila mandal, Chichoga, 3.

Jhanki ( Government Department): Atal Bihari Vajpayee , Institute of Mountaineering and Allied Sports, Manali , 1; Department of Tourisim, H.P, 2; and Boarder Roads Organization , 70,RCC, 3.

Folk (Dance) : Kirti kala mandir, Nasik, 1; Shiv shakti kala manch , Kullu, 2; and Dhan lakshmi group, Assam, 3.

Street Play : Satya group , Ludhiyana, 1; Gokle college, Karnatka, 2; and Jagriti kala manch, Manali, 3.

Film Dance : Friends dance institute, Jammu, 1; Gokle college, Karnatka, 2; and Kirti kala mandir, Nasik, 3.

Fancy Dress : Sarswati kala manch, Manali, 1; Samvad yuva club, Mandi, 2; and Aakash kala sangam, Bhuntar, 3 .

Classical Dance : Kriti kala manch , Nasik, 1; Gagte college ,Pune, 2; and Government Degree College, Kullu, 3.

Rangoli : Prabhu Patil, 1; Malika Sharma, 2; and Rajni, 3.

Voice of Himalaya : Sunil Kumar Chauhan, Mandi, 1; Kanchan Sharma , Shimla, Kartik Sharma, Shimla, 2; and Kumar Sahil , Kangra, Ashok Chauhan, Solan, 3.