Dr Ramadoss to call on Bihar with special pills

But even before that, the Health Ministry plans to nearly double the state’s budgetary allocations. Officials said the step came on the report from a team of Health Ministry experts who visited Bihar last month. ‘‘If you have to improve the national indicators, Bihar cannot be ignored. The team of experts had found that the state health system needs support and the government is willing to provide that,’’ said an official. ‘‘The state gets Rs 218 crore this year and we are planning to allocate another Rs 200 crore, provided the state promises to spend the money properly,’’ said a senior official in the ministry.

Officials said the state has not utilised the entire funds in the previous year. ‘‘The budget of year 2001-2002 has not yet been accounted for by the state. We will provide more money but the financial management has to improve,’’ the official said.

The ministry has, however framed the outline of the plan already. The Ministry will focus on improving primary healthcare by improving infrastructure, including maternal healthcare and implementation of Reproductive and Child Health Programme (RCH-II) for population control. The Centre is also planning to advertise for the post of eight special national consultants for the state.