AGARTALA, June 10 (TIWN): Inept administrators and incompetent officials of the Health and Family Welfare department of Tripura is only responsible for the great debacle which was faced by the whole state last year when the Malaria Outbreak did hit the entire state.

Although the central visiting team from the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP) had visited the affected areas from 22nd June to 27th June, 2014 and did categorically mentioned that “the outbreak became extensive mainly due to a system failure from top to bottom (ASHAs to State Health Society & beyond), as evident from the fact of lack of early warning signals which were missed in 2nd week of May, 2014 in District Dhalai;  informed and advised the state health authorities in the 2nd visit by NVBDCP team in 2 districts in the 1st week of June, 2014, delay in  DDT spray, inadequate manpower due to unusual delay in recruitment of NVBDCP contractual staff and Poor monitoring & supervision mainly due to lack of mobility support”.

However, the verdict of central team’s reports has actually put an end to the bundle of lies by the Health Minister and his worthless team of inefficient officials that “everything is in order”. However, most of the things that were vividly pointed out in that report have not been corrected till date and the citizens of Tripura residing in the endemic areas of Malaria shall be the worse sufferers if again Malaria Outbreak hits like previous year.

Interestingly, to our greatest surprise, we did found another shocking revelation in the “Statement of GIA Releases (Cash Grant), Expenditure & Unspent Balance for the year 2014-15” in the NVBDCP website of the Govt of India that a few Medical Officers have allegedly said that the mortality from the Malaria outbreak in 2014 could have been much less if only the sanctioned amount for the projects were spent in time and judiciously.  They further said that the Health Department of our state has actually spent merely 20-25% of the available funds and remaining huge funds were mostly going back without getting used.

On the one hand the comrades of the so called “Golden Era” cry out loudly about the “deprivations by the central govt”, but the grant aid by the NVBDCP shows us a completely different story.

It is further reveal that, during 2014-15 financial year, Tripura have received an amount of 977.60 lakhs and adding to previously available opening balance of 667.45 lakhs, total available fund was 1645.05 lakhs. Reportedly, this fund is meant for prevention and treatment of different insect borne diseases like Malaria, Dengue, and Japanese Encephalitis but so far no full-fledged utility of the fund is done for the prevention of the diseases in the particular areas and the state may soon experience the debacle of Japanese Encephalitis which is gripping the state gradually.

It seems that they have not learnt any lessons from the last year’s Malaria Outbreak debacles and did not bothered to spend the released amount of central fund to prepare in a better way for the next year.  All the North Eastern states usually receives huge amounts of central assistance for Health purposes but the inefficient and corrupt  local management under the state health department  leads to deplorable health status of the society.

However, the Chief Minister and Health Minister of the state should start to revamp the ailing Health Department of our state instead of making the tall claims in front of the public.