‘I Am Being Targeted Because of My Star Value’

You had promised that you would push for the anti-tobacco Bill the day you joined.
The Bill was introduced in the Parliament and was referred to a Parliamentary Committee. This panel gave certain recommendations, and it will soon be presented to the Cabinet.

Your major achievements as health minister…
A post-graduate institute of medical education and research is being established at the Ram Manohar Lohia hospital, an evening OPD is proposed to be opened in Safdarjung hospital, the issue of spurious drugs in the country has been taken up with CMs. Apart from this, an additional 50 million people have been brought under the revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme. A plan of Action on ‘Vision 2002: The Right to Sight’ initiative has been approved by the ministry to curb the prevalence of avoidable blindness by 2020.
The National Drug De-addiction Centre under AIIMS would start functioning from March, 2003. We have launched http://www.cdsco.nic.in to provide consumers and stakeholders information regarding drug regulatory agencies. And the regional drug testing laboratory became functional from October 1, 2001, catering to the requirements of the North Eastern states.

The Ministry’s Pulse Polio Programme was very successful initially, but the situation seems to be particularly bad this year…
During this year, 1,345 Polio cases have been reported from all over the country of which around 85 per cent are from UP. I met the UP Chief Minister, who has given very strict instructions to the district authorities for effective implementation of strategies for Polio eradication. Twenty central-level officers have been deputed to UP to analyse gaps and for suggesting corrective measures.

Transparency International has listed health sector as one of the ten most corrupt in India…
Prima facia, I do not agree with their observations. In fact, I have not had the occasion to peruse their report or the data on which the results are based.