Saharanpur: The condition of public health systems is dilapidated in the state of Uttar Pradesh. There is an acute shortage of doctors in the government hospitals and this was confirmed in the State Assembly by the Minister of Health (Uttar Pradesh), Mr. Siddharth Nath Singh.
Image: Hindustan Times
MLA from Saharanpur and Samajwadi Party leader Mr. Sanjay Garg raised questions to the Health Minister that about the required number of specialist doctors in the area and that how many, correspondingly were appointed and functioning?To this, the Health minister responded that in total there were 7300 specialists required. In relation, 3769 doctors have been appointed confirming a shortage of more than 3500 doctors. The Health minister responded to the question of appointment of all doctors as per the necessary standards in the district headquarters in a very vague manner saying that the doctors have been appointed as per their availability in all the district headquarters of the state.
Not only the public health system, but the status of education and teaching staff seemed worrying. In response to questions on the number of posts for teaching assistants that were vacant, the Minister for Education replied that as many as 1,37,000 positions were vacant, but their task was being accomplished by shjikshak mitra (friends of teachers). On the question whether the government will fill in the vacant positions, the minister replied in affirmative. And said that as per government order 2609/79-5-18, dated January 9, 2018, for the purpose of filling in vacant positions of primary schools, the process of appointment has started for 68,500 positions. This process will be over by June.
MLA Mr. Sanjay Garg also asked the Minister for Transportation that how many Scania buses were operational under private contract given by the UPSRTC and what was their load factor?
In response the respective minister said that, for the financial year 2017-18, between April 2017 and December 2017, 52 Scania buses were operationalised. For the given period, the load factor derived for the operational Scania buses was 35%. Responding to the question on the fare of Scania buses, the reply received was that the fare was Rs. 2 per seat per kilometre. On this the toll tax and GST are also added. The government was not considering any concessions in the bus fare as of now.
In a separate letter Mr. Garg also drew attention to the sewerage system in Saharnpur area. He said that due to dilapidated system of sewerage, the dirty water is sometimes getting mixed with the drinking water stored in water tanks by the residents. This is causing them immense problems and this should be urgently looked at. He said that this should be looked into, as per the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT)