SHILLONG, March 30: The state government released a total amount of Rs 53 crore during the 2021-22 fiscal for payment to ASHA workers.
This is the highest amount released in any year under Meghalaya ASHA Benefit Scheme (MABS) and Meghalaya Maternity Benefit Scheme (MMBS) since the inception of National Health Mission (NHM).
NHM, Meghalaya Director, Ram Kumar said the government released sanctions under MABS for clearing any backlog incentive up to March 2021.
“The sanction letter has been given to Deputy Commissioners of all districts on March 29, 2022 on the funds release with copies to District Medical and Health Officers for their information and necessary action,” he said.
According to Kumar, the state government with the support of NHM introduced the ASHA and ASHA Facilitator Payment App to ease the payment process of ASHA incentives and ensure timely disbursement of the same.
He said the application will also be an important support tool for programme officers at all levels as it will enable regular monitoring and tracking of ASHA payment and ensure no time lag in payments.
Disclosing that the application has been rolled out in Umling Block of Ri-Bhoi district on a pilot basis, Kumar said the number of ASHAs enrolled in the application is 471 from the entire Ri-Bhoi district and total claims raised is Rs 29.90 lakh. He said an amount raised has been released for payment to the ASHAs through this application within five days from the time of claims. This process has cut down the time from 120-150 days to less than five days, he said.
Kumar said MABS and MMBS, which are Meghalaya government initiatives, were introduced in 2011-12. The objective of MABS is to improve service delivery to the community.
He said as funds were not regularly released till the financial year 2018-2019, the NHM, Meghalaya could not make regular payments to the ASHAs.
The NHM Director said a meeting on the irregular payments of these incentives was held in June 2021, between government officials and Meghalaya ASHA Workers Union, wherein the issues were discussed threadbare. He said it was decided that MABS will be replaced with a fixed monthly incentive of Rs 2,000 per ASHA effective from April 2021.
“It was decided that MMBS will be terminated effective from April 2021 as there is already a similar existing Central scheme known as Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana which was introduced in January 2017. It was also decided that backlog payments for both MABS and MMBS will be paid to the ASHA workers till March 2021,” Kumar added.
