Strengthen, not outsource, dispensaries: Bansal

Tribune News Service 

Chandigarh, June 19

Former Union Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal has opposed the move of the UT Administration to outsource government dispensaries on public-private partnership mode by engaging an NGO for the purpose.

In a letter to UT Administrator VP Singh Badnore, Bansal said education and health were primary government responsibilities while private sector was allowed in these areas only as a supplementary channel. “If an NGO wishes to provide such services, the right course will not be to handover any government facility, but to facilitate it in starting a new one by offering land at concessional rates, subject to conditions that may be laid down,” said Bansal.

He further said the objective of the move to transfer the dispensaries to an NGO, as stated in the recommendation of the subcommittee on health to the Administrator’s Advisory Council, to “curtail the flow of patients visiting the hospitals for small ailments” and “decongest the major hospitals” was flawed and untenable. “Government dispensaries already are serving these stated objectives despite their resource constraints and manpower shortages,” Bansal said.