From Our Correspondent
Guwahati: A primary health centre (PHC) in a remote Chakma tribal inhabited area in Mizoram has been left defunct for 20 long years and a campaign to open it for the benefit of the people has even reached the President of India who has questioned the Chief Secretary of Mizoram about it.
Mizoram Chakma Development Forum (MCDF) has requested President Pranab Mukherjee to intervene into the matter and initiate the functioning of the primary health centre (PHC) in the border town of Borpansury in Mizoram’s Chakma region.
The deserted Borapansury clinic is the only PHC in paper for the entire Chakma Autonomous District Council area, created under the 6th Schedule of the Constitution. It lies on the border of India and Bangladesh.
In a petition submitted to the President on July 28, the Forum stated that lack of healthcare in the region was a cause of great difficulty, hardship and pain to the 12,000 tribals living the area. “Several people die of preventable diseases every year. The poor health service is compounded by bad road connectivity, forcing people to take a 10-hour mountain road to the state capital of Aizawl to seek medical help,” it said.
After lying abandoned for 20 years, the government spent about Rs 1 crore to rebuild the Borpansury primary health centre in 2010. Since then, no doctors or any other medical staff has been appointed as the place is lies in a state of disuse.
The Forum informed that in response to the petition submitted by it, the office of the President of India on August 1 last (office memo :PRSEC/E/2012/10311) transferred it to the office of the Chief Secretary of Mizoram, and asked the Forum to get in touch with the same regarding the matter.
Mizoram Chief Secretary Vanhela Pachuau said acute shortage of doctors in the state was the main reason for leaving that PHC idle. He said Mizoram needed about 500 more doctors to man all its CHCs and PHCs as per the norms prescribed by the Government of India, but the State has not recruited any regular doctors for the last 15 years because of financial crisis. At this moment the State has only about 300 doctors working. He further said his office would definitely act once it received the MCDF memorandum reportedly redirected from President’s Office from New Delhi.