State to set up directorate of urban health services soon

This directorate, which will come under the purview of the state public health department, will oversee all urban local bodies like the 27 municipal corporations, including Mumbai, and the municipal councils

Mumbai For effective coordination during pandemic situations and to ensure better delivery of public health services in the growing urban agglomerations in Maharashtra, the state government will set up a separate directorate of urban health services.

A senior officer from the state public health department said that the new administrative mechanism was expected to ensure better delivery of central government and state government schemes in urban areas (HT Photo)

This directorate, which will come under the purview of the state public health department, will oversee all urban local bodies like the 27 municipal corporations, including Mumbai, and the municipal councils. The proposal for an urban health directorate will be tabled before the state cabinet soon.

A senior officer from the state public health department said that the new administrative mechanism was expected to ensure better delivery of central government and state government schemes in urban areas.

“It will create a superstructure to regulate the working of the health departments in these urban local bodies... a proposal has been submitted to the state government and will be tabled before the cabinet soon,” he added.

“At present, the state government is largely in the dark about what is happening on the public health front in the urban and municipal corporation areas. For some local bodies like the municipal councils, public health may not be a priority. The director (urban) will ensure administrative control on the executive health officers of the municipal corporations and councils. This is one of the learnings of the pandemic as there were times when we faced hiccups in tasks like collating data,” said another official from the state public health department. He added that the public health systems in some municipal councils were “skeletal.”

At present, the directorate of health services has two directors—the Director General of Health Services in Mumbai and the Director, Health and Family Welfare, based in Pune. In terms of urbanisation, Maharashtra is the third with 45.23 per cent urban population, preceded by Tamil Nadu (48.45%) and Kerala (47.72%) as per the 2011 decadal census.

“Since Maharashtra is a highly-urbanised state, the new system will help us focus on health problems that are typical to urban areas, and ensure better planning and coordination, especially in a pandemic situation,” the second officer quoted above noted.