Prime Minister Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana (PMASBY)

In the Budget speech of FY 21-22, ‘Prime Minister AtmanirbharSwasth Bharat Yojana’ (PMASBY) scheme has been announced on 1st February, 2021, with an outlay of about Rs.64,180 Cr over six years (till FY 25-26). This will be in addition to the National Health Mission.

The main interventions under the scheme to be achieved by FY 25-26 are:

• Support for 17,788 rural Health and Wellness Centres in in 10 High Focus States
• Establishing 11,024 urban Health and Wellness Centres in all the States.
• Setting up of Integrated Public Health Labs in all districts and 3382 Block Public Health Units in11 High Focus states;
• Establishing Critical Care Hospital Blocks in 602 districts and 12 Central Institutions;
• Strengthening of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), its 5 regional branches and 20 metropolitan health surveillance units;
• Expansion of the Integrated Health Information Portal to all States/UTs to connect all public health labs;
• vii. Operationalisation of 17 new Public Health Units and strengthening of 33 existing Public Health Units at Points of Entry, that is at 32 Airports, 11 Seaports and 7 landcrossings;
• Setting up of 15 Health Emergency Operation Centres and 2 mobile hospitals; and
• Setting up of a national institution for One Health, a Regional Research Platform for WHO South East Asia Region, 9 Bio-Safety Level III laboratories and 4 regional National Institutes for Virology.
• The measures under the scheme focus on developing capacities of health systems and institutions across the continuum of care at all levels viz. primary, secondary and tertiary and on preparing health systems in responding effectively to the current and future pandemics/disasters.
• The PMASBY targets to build an IT enabled disease surveillance system by developing a network of surveillance laboratories at block, district, regional and national levels, in Metropolitan areas & strengthening health units at the Points of Entry, for effectively detecting, investigating, preventing and combating Public Health Emergencies and Disease Outbreaks.
• Increased investments are also targeted to support research on COVID-19 and other infectious diseases, including biomedical research to generate evidence to inform short-term and medium-term response to COVID-19 like pandemics and to develop core capacity to deliver the One Health Approach to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease outbreaks in animals and humans.
• National Health Policy (NHP), 2017 envisages raising public health expenditure from the existing 1.15% to 2.5% of GDP by 2025 in a time bound manner.

National Institutes of Food Technology Bill, 2019 Passed by Rajya Sabha

Rajya Sabha passed the National Institutes of Food Technology, Entrepreneurship and Management Bill, 2019.

Provisions:

• The bill declares two institutes of food technology, entrepreneurship, and management as institutions of national importance. These are:
  • National Institute of Food Technology Entrepreneurship and Management, Haryana
  • Indian Institute of Food Processing Technology, Tamil Nadu.

Institutions of National Importance:.

• The status is conferred on a premier public higher education institution in India by an act of the Parliament of India.

Benefits:

• These institutes are provided functional autonomy to design and develop courses
• Award Degrees such as Bachelor of Technology, Master of Technology, and Ph.D.
• Undertake research activities
• The institutes would also implement the reservation policy of the Government.

Deep Ocean Mission

• The Deep Ocean Mission is proposed as the multi-ministerial multi-disciplinary programme with an emphasis on the development of deep-sea technology, exploration of deep-sea mineral resources and biodiversity, acquisition of a research vessel for exploration, deep sea observations, and capacity building. Ministry of Earth Sciences is the nodal agency for implementing the programme.
• The Deep Ocean Mission is proposed to be a Central Sector Scheme and no separate allocation for States is envisaged.
• It is proposed to collaborate with non-governmental organizations for research collaboration for various components of the Deep Ocean Mission.
• Under Deep Ocean Mission, it is proposed to develop, test and demonstrate the mining technology for harvesting polymetallic nodules from the Test Mine Site (TMS) in the allocated area of 75000 sq. km in the Central Indian Ocean Basin (CIOB).
• A manned submersible for 6000 m depth is also proposed to be developed as an ocean exploratory tool.

The major objectives proposed under Deep Ocean Mission are as follows:

1. Development of technologies for deep-sea mining, underwater vehicles and underwater robotics;
2. Development of ocean climate change advisory services;
3. Technological innovations for exploration and conservation of deepsea biodiversity;
4. Deep ocean survey and exploration;
5. Proof of concept studies on energy and freshwater from the ocean; and
6. Establishing an advanced marine station for ocean biology.