Over 12 lakh govt school students to get health card

Vikas Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, March 4

In a significant move to ensure full medical coverage of over 12 lakh students enrolled in government schools from Class I to XII in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, a Student Health Card will now be issued to students under the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) in the Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS). There are around 23, 747 government schools in J&K, including 12,252 in Kashmir Division and 11495 in Jammu Province.

Project Director of J&K Samagra Shiksha and Director, MDMS, J&K, Dr Arun Manhas said, “Lieutenant-Governor Girish Chander Murmu will formally launch the Student Health Card tomorrow (March 5). The motive behind the issuance of the health card is to keep a proper health record of all enrolled students in government schools”.

“Under RBSK, it is mandatory to have medical check-up of students at least once in a year, but under this new Student Health Card, the medical check-up of the students will be done twice in a year. For that, a calendar will be finalised to fix the time for medical check-ups in collaboration with the National Health Mission (NHM)”, Arun Manhas added.

Sources said the Human Resource Development Ministry (HRD) had taken up the issue with the J&K authorities regarding the coverage of children under the RBSK after which the authorities had assured that efforts would be made to ensure health check-up of the students of government schools twice a year.

As per the data available, out of total 9,41,554 children, only 7,56,336 (80 per cent) children were screened for health check-up under the RBSK in 2019. Further, only 4,40,137 (47 per cent) children were distributed iron and folic acid tables under the Weekly Iron and Folic acid Supplementation programme (WIFS) while 4,96,327 (53 percent) children were distributed de-worming tablets in the same year.

Nine districts in J&K also registered the low coverage of children. These were Shopian (49 per cent), Ganderbal (52 per cent), Udhampur (61 per cent), Ramban (65 per cent), Kupwara (66 per cent) Anantnag (66 per cent), Baramulla (69 per cent), Bandipora (71 per cent) and Kishtwar (77 per cent).