Chandigarh: After standoffs over funding in recent years, the Union ministry of health and family welfare approved supplementary funding of Rs 23.22 crore for Punjab under the National Health Mission (NHM) for the financial year 2025–26. The additional funding aims to boost nutrition support for tuberculosis (TB) patients, promote innovative public health campaigns, and strengthen digital mental health infrastructure across the state.The revised budget signals a shift in Punjab’s health priorities toward targeted public health interventions, especially in nutrition, mental health, and disease elimination, within a constrained fiscal space. With the latest approvals, Punjab’s total NHM allocation for 2025–26 now stands at Rs 1,841.65 crore, which includes both previously sanctioned funds and the newly approved supplementary proposals.A major portion of the supplementary funding — Rs 19.31 crore — has been earmarked for the Nikshay Poshan Yojana, a direct benefit transfer scheme that provides monthly nutritional support to TB patients. In addition, Rs 2.82 crore has been approved for state-specific TB innovations, such as community engagement and Jan Bhagidari-based awareness campaigns.The National Deworming Day campaign has also received a boost, with Rs 55.3 lakh allocated for the procurement of Albendazole tablets aimed at treating more than 22.8 lakh children aged 1 to 19 years across the state. Another Rs 49.3 lakh has been sanctioned under the Tele-MANAS initiative — the govt’s national mental health helpline project. The funds will cover salaries for essential mental health professionals such as a Senior Consultant, Counsellors, Psychiatric Social Workers, and Clinical Psychologists, along with operational costs for running the state-level Tele-MANAS cell in Punjab.While these new approvals provide much-needed support for priority health areas, they have been offset by an equivalent surrender of previously sanctioned funds that remained unspent. According to the official record, Punjab surrendered Rs 23.22 crore from earlier allocations, which included savings from TB diagnostics, civil works, drug procurement for drug-resistant TB, latent TB, and NCD-related equipment and screening.Officials clarified that the overall NHM resource envelope for Punjab remains unchanged, with the supplementary approvals matched rupee-for-rupee by the surrendered funds. The adjustments are part of the Union health ministry’s strategy to allow states to reallocate resources mid-cycle in response to evolving health needs and program performance.THE STANDOFFThe Punjab govt and Union health ministry were involved in a tiff over the branding of Ayushman Arogya Kendras as Aam Aadmi Clinics. The dispute led to the suspension of NHM funds of Rs 112 crore for the financial year 2022–23 and Rs 366.41 crore for 2023–24, from a total central allocation of Rs 457.90 crore. In Nov 2024, the two sides reached an agreement to rebrand the clinics as Ayushman Arogya Kendras, aligning with the Centre’s guidelines. The renaming process was completed by Jan 2025 and included wall painting, installation of six logos, name boards, and defined border patterns for windows and doors.
