Will the Minister of HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE be pleased to state:
(a) whether the Ministry proposes to take up the matter of providing tax credits to rural healthcare workers whose incomes are not at par with urban healthcare workers;
(b) if so, the details thereof; and
(c) if not, the measures being taken to help rural healthcare workers to sustain their livelihoods?
(a) & (b): There is no proposal for providing tax credits to rural healthcare workers.
(c): Public Health and Hospitals being a State Subject, all the administrative and personnel matters of health human resource lie with the respective State/UT Governments. Under the National Health Mission (NHM), Government of India provides financial and technical support to States/UTs to strengthen their healthcare systems including support for remuneration of health human resources (Doctors and other healthcare workers), based on the requirements posed by the States/UTs in their Programme Implementation Plans (PIPs) subject to availability of resources.
In order to ensure that the rural healthcare workers sustain their livelihood, Government of India provides extra incentives to the rural healthcare workers, for both clinical and paramedical staff, for providing healthcare services in hard to reach areas, tribal areas etc., besides the regular salaries. Financial support is also given to States/UTs for providing performance-based incentives, hard area allowance, providing accommodation and transport facilities in rural and remote areas in addition to their salary, for engaging healthcare workers in the public health facilities. States/UT are also encouraged to adopt flexible norms for engaging healthcare workers for public health facilities by various mechanisms like ‘contracting in’ and ‘contracting out’ of specialist services under National Health Mission. State/UTs have also been allowed to offer negotiable salaries to attract Specialists including flexibility in strategies such as ''You quote, we pay". However, the type and quantum of these incentives vary from State to State as per the policies of respective State/UT Government and the proposals received from the States in their PIP.