104 services in 5,000 villages to be aborted

HYDERABAD: The state government has reportedly decided to restrict the 104 health services as part of cost-cutting measures.According to sources, in a meeting held between the 104 contract employees and the state government on Monday, it has been decided to withdraw services to 5,000 villages.Earlier, the state government used to operate 475 services for 28 days a month in about 25,000 villages.But, now they have decided to restrict the services to 24 days per month by removing nearly 1,000 employees as per the recommendations by an expert committee constituted by the government.The restriction of working days means cutting down services to a number of villages every month.The state government said services to 5,000 sub-centre villages would be aborted.Sub-centre villages are major gram panchayats which have ANM services.Though there were nearly 12,000 sub-centres in the state, services in only 5,000 villages would be aborted soon.The state government launched the 104 services in 2008 to provide basic health services to rural poor.There are four categories of employees in these services like lab-technicians, pharmacists, data entry operators and drivers.The 104 employees took strong objection to the government’s move to abort services saying that it had no commitment in providing better health services to the poor living in remote places in the state.No government would restrict the health services, they said.