New Delhi : The Union health ministry has reconstituted the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare, the apex advisory body set up by the ministry to consider and recommend broad lines of policy on matters concerning health and family welfare in the country. The ministry also defined the nature of duties performed by the Council and the procedures, through a notification.
The Council, chaired by the union minister for health and family welfare, Dr Mansukh Mandaviya, will have the minister of state in the Ministry Bhagwant Khuba, as the vice chairman. The full time member of NITI Aayog, ministers in charge of the ministries of health and family welfare, medical education and public health in the states and Union territories, a representative from each of the Union territories; Dr Subhash Ramrao Bhamre and Dr Arvind Kumar Sharma, Lok Sabha members and Dr Sumer Singh Solanki and Dineshchandra Jemalbhai Anavadiya, members of Rajya Sabha are members of the Council.
There are six non-official members – the presidents of Indian Medical Association; Family Planning Association of India; Indian Council of Child Welfare; Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry; All India Organisation of Employers; and Chairperson of Central Social Welfare Board.
The Secretaries of Department of Health and Family Welfare; Department of Health Research and Director General of ICMR; Ministry of Ayush; Ministry of Women and Child Development; and Director General of Health Services are the official members. The Economic Advisor of the Department will be the Member Secretary of the Council.
A notification issued by the Ministry on April 22, also defines the nature of the duties to be performed by the Council. The Council shall consider and recommend broad lines of policy in regard to matters concerning health and family welfare in all its aspects, such as the provision of remedial, promotive and preventive care, environmental hygiene, nutrition, health education and the promotion of facilities for training and research.
It shall also make proposal for legislation of in fields of activity relating to medical and public health and family welfare matters, laying down the pattern of development for the country as a whole; examine the whole field of possible co-operation on a wide basis in regard to inter-state quarantine during time of festivals, out-break of epidemics and serious calamities such as earth-quakes and famines and to draw up a common programme of action.
The Council will also make recommendations to the Central government regarding distribution of available grants-in-aid for health and family welfare purposes to the States and to review periodically the work accomplished in different areas through the utilisation of their grants-in-aid. It shall also establish any organisation or organisations invested with appropriate functions for promoting and maintaining co-operation between the Central and State Health and Family Welfare Administration.
According to the notification, the council shall meet once or more each year and shall have five members including the chairman as quorum for the meeting. All questions which may come up before the council at the meeting shall be decided by a majority of vote of the members, including the chairman, present at the meeting. The Council shall observe in the conduct of its business, such other procedures, with the approval of the Central government, laid down from time to time, it added.
The council has held its meeting from the year 1988, to consider the policy related matters.
