Northeast to get India's first ever Air Dispensary: Dr Jitendra Singh

New Delhi: Northeast is all set to get Indias first-ever "Air Dispensary" based in a helicopter and the Union Ministry of Development of Northeast (DONER) has already contributed Rs. 25 crore as part of the initial funding for this initiative.

Disclosing this here yesterday after a meeting with the representatives of Aviation Sector and helicopter service/Pawan Hans, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said, for quite a few months, the DoNER Ministry had been exploring the idea of introducing a helicopter based Dispensary/OPD service in such far flung and remote areas, where no doctor or medical facility was available and the patient, in need, also did not have any access to any medical care. The proposal put forward by the Ministry of DoNER, he said, has been accepted and is in the final stages of process in the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation.

The Union Ministry of Northeast/DoNER, Dr Jitendra Singh said, is keenly pursuing the proposal so that by the beginning of 2018, this could be the Union Governments gift to the people of Northeast.

Dr Jitendra Singh disclosed that even today, nearly 1/3rd of Indias population did not have access to proper hospital bed care, as a result of which, poor patients living in remote areas remained deprived of crucial medical care. The experiment being introduced in the Northeast, at the behest of the Ministry of Northeast/DoNER, can also be emulated in other hill states having difficult topography like Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, he added.