Mohalla Clinics to be renamed by BJP-led government in Delhi

The Mohalla Clinics, launched by the previous AAP-led Delhi Government, will be rebranded as Urban-Ayushman Aarogya Mandirs (U-AAMs), aligning with the PM Ayushman Bharat scheme.

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The clinics were introduced as a free primary healthcare setup in 2015, but have faced several controversies.

Under the AAP-rule in Delhi, there existed 553 neighbourhood clinics. The AAP had proposed to build 1,000 such clinics, however, half had been operational.

Despite its ambition and recognition from foreign governments and institutions, the Mohalla Clinics had been marred by political controversies. The BJP had consistently accused the AAP government of fund mismanagement, alleging irregularities in payments to doctors and inflated patient records.

In response to these allegations, Delhi’s Lieutenant Governor (L-G) VK Saxena ordered an inquiry into the functioning of these clinics. The model has even garnered global recognition, with organisations like the United Nations and World Health Organisation praising its cost-effective approach to public health.

The scheme, along with the healthcare setup of the Delhi Government, had been a point of tussle between the L-G and the AAP government.

The AAP had accused the L-G and the BJP-led Central Government of deliberate bureaucratic hurdles to stall the project. The party claimed that funding delays, lease refusals for clinic spaces and procedural roadblocks were politically motivated attempts to undermine their governance model.

Another significant point of contention has been the allocation of funds under the PM Ayushman Bharat Yojana. Delhi was sanctioned Rs. 2,406 crore under the scheme, yet the funds have reportedly been pending since 2021.

AAP leaders had argued that the delay was intentional, meant to stifle Delhi’s healthcare initiatives, while the then BJP opposition insisted that the AAP government had failed to meet procedural requirements for fund disbursement.

There have also been instances where doctors were accused of misreporting patient numbers to claim inflated payments, adding to the concerns over transparency in the initiative. Last year, in February a preliminary inquiry by the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB) of the Delhi Government had revealed that 65,000 “ghost patients” underwent pathological tests at the Mohalla clinics through private labs during 11 months of 2023.

“Two private labs conducted nearly 22 lakh tests during February-December, 2023, out of which 65,000 were found to be fake,” they said. “The labs were paid Rs 4.63 crore by the government for the tests conducted by them,” officials had then alleged.

In 2017, the Vigilance Department had received complaints from an NGO that the Mohalla Clinics were overcharging from the government along with claims that some doctors were paid for seeing more patients than realistically possible in a single day.

Beyond politics, Mohalla Clinics have also faced criticism over infrastructure and service quality. Some clinics allegedly suffered from shortages of medicines, inadequate staffing and unhygienic conditions.

The new Delhi government has also decided to propose an increase in the number of Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers to the Union Health Ministry.

According to officials, 1,139 Urban-AAMs will be established under the Ayushman Bharat Infrastructure Mission Scheme (PM-ABHIM). Additionally, each of Delhi’s 11 districts will have a model Ayushman Arogya Mandir, extending the initiative to dispensaries managed by both the Delhi Government and the Municipal Corporation of Delhi. The government also plans to enroll the first one lakh beneficiaries under the Ayushman Bharat scheme.

These proposals were approved by Health Minister Pankaj Singh during his first meeting with the state Health Department.