Shillong, March 07: Meghalaya Health Minister Mr. James K Sangma in his reply to Calling Attention Notice under Rule 54(1) tabled by Mr. Mayralborn Syiem, MLA on 7th of March, 2022. The ASHA programme was introduced as a key component of the community processes intervention under the National Health Mission in the year 2005.
The ASHA programme has emerged as the largest community health worker programme in the Country and is considered a critical contributor to enabling people’s participation in health.
The ASHA is primarily an “Honorary Volunteer” selected from the community she resides in and is eligible for performance based incentives offered under various National Health Programmes as compensation for her work as a Health Volunteer.
The Total Number of ASHA in the State as on February 2022 Rural ASHA- 6801 Urban ASHA- 250 TOTAL – 7051 I would like to mention here that the number of ASHA workers have been increased from about 6690 in the year 2018 to 7051 in the year 2022.
This helps us to teach each and every locality in the State. Incentives for ASHAs Following are the approximate incentives which an ASHA worker is entitled to based on their performance with approximate calculation for 100 house hold per ASHA on achieving their targets.
Reproductive and Child Health Programme – Rs. 7651 /- , Immunization- Rs. 375 /- , Health Systems Strengthening – Rs. 1200/-, Non Communicable Diseases (NCD) – Rs. 60 /- , Communicable Diseases – Rs. 1550 /-, Covid -19 Incentive from Union Government Sources – Rs. 1000 /- 7.
Fixed incentive to ASHAs – Rs. 2000 /- per month (A Government of Meghalaya Initiative since April 2021) 8. Covid -19 Incentive from State Resources – Rs. 1000/- per month (A Government of Meghalaya Initiative since April 2021) With the introduction of the Incentives from the Government of Meghalaya, an ASHA is guaranteed a minimum of Rs. 4000/- per month excluding the incentives under National Health Mission which are performance based.
On an average an ASHA is expected to earn an incentive of Rs. 5000 /- to Rs. 10000/- per month depending on the performance. Release of FundsProgramme Incentives under National Health Mission has been released to all Districts.
Fixed incentives and Covid -19 Incentives from Government of Meghalaya of Rs. 2000/- and Rs. 1000/- respectively per ASHA per month has been released to the Districts in two installments.
The First installment was released for payment till September 2021 and the Second Installment was released for payment till March 2022. ASHA and ASHA Facilitators Payment Application We have acknowledged that there is a delay in these incentives reaching in time to the ASHA workers.
Hence, we had promised during last year that we will develop an efficient online claims and payment mechanism thereby this delay is reduced drastically. With the support of National Health Mission, the ASHA and ASHA Facilitator payment mobile application has been developed.
The sole purpose of developing the Application is to ease the payment process of ASHA incentives and ensure timely disbursement of the same. The application will also be an important support tool for programme officers at all level as it will enable regular monitoring and tracking of ASHA payment and ensure minimum time lag in payments.
This application has been rolled out in Umling Block of Ri-Bhoi District on a pilot basis and it is expected to be implemented in the entire State by April 2022. I am also happy to inform that 74 ASHA workers of Umling block have successfully raised their claims and payments have been made to their accounts within 48 hours of their claims.
This is one of its kind of application which has been successfully integrated with PFMS as well. I would also like to mention here that the Government has released a total of Rupees 151 crores in the last four years for ASHAs for various incentive purposes including the pending backlogs of erstwhile Meghalaya ASHA benefit Scheme (MABS) and Meghalaya Maternity Benefit Scheme (MMBS).
Of the 151 crores that has been released, about 79.49 crores i.e. over 50% amount has come from State Resources only. This is three times higher in comparison to the total release of 48.87 crores during 2013-18.
The Health Minister urge the members of this house and ASHA workers to not believe that it is only Rupees 66 per ASHA worker a day. This is not accurate. For 2021-22, an amount of 59 crores has already been released to about 7000 ASHA workers which would amount to about Rupees 7000 per ASHA worker per month on an average.
Even this is about 233 rupees per day and not 66 rupees per day. The program is designed to be performance based so that there is a genuine motivation to increase service delivery. With the coming of the new online application, the claims mechanism shall be eased and the payments will be done at the shortest possible time.
