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Fund crunch forces Aids society to move out of office, cut staff

Centre allocated Rs 77.31 cr this yr, against a demand for Rs 117 cr
Last Updated 10 October 2015, 19:32 IST

A sharp cut in its budget has forced the Karnataka State Aids Prevention Society (KSAPS), which has been headquartered at Crescent Road in the heart of the city since its inception in 1992, to decide to move to the CV Raman General Hospital building in Indiranagar.

The KSAPS got a 35-per cent cut in the budget for 2015-16. The Union government allocated it Rs 77.31 crore, as against Rs 117 crore proposed by the National AIDS Control Organisation (Naco). As a result, the Department of Health and Family Welfare has been forced to bring austerity measures in the organisation. It hopes to save Rs 57 lakh a year by shifting the office from the rented building to the government hospital. The shifting would take place in the next two months.

The KSAPS pays a monthly rent of Rs 4.18 lakh for one building and Rs 67,000 for another. The department will also integrate activities under the HIV/Aids control programme to cut down the expenditure by about Rs two crore a year. It is also reducing the staff at the KSAPS.

Attempts by the Karnataka government to convince the Centre to increase the budget haven’t borne fruit, and the department was forced to cut costs, said its principal secretary, Atul Kumar Tiwari.

It hopes to save Rs 1.5 crore a year by doing away with all District Aids Prevention and Control Units doctors. Each district has been assigned a government doctor who works as a nodal officer.

The government had deputed 26 government doctors to the KSAPS. Nineteen of them are in service. Each doctor is being paid Rs 85,000 a month, way more than the Naco-approved salary of Rs 31,200. District TB Officers will be asked to double up as nodal officers, Tiwari said.

The department has also decided to shift the 172 counsellors working at Integrated Counselling and Testing Centres to Rashtriya Kishor Swasthya Karyakram under the National Health Mission. Each counsellor is being paid a salary of Rs 16,500. This cost will now be shared by both the KSAPS and the NHM. The KSAPS spends Rs 3.7 crore a year on the salaries. If the same is shared, the burden will be reduced by Rs 1.27 crore for the KSAPS, Tiwari said.

The official insisted that the trimming and sharing of costs would not affect the core activities of the KSAPS. At the same time, the State would continue pressuring the Centre to increase the KSAPS’s budget. “The Centre has not scaled down the programmes. So, there are severe difficulties in implementing Aids control activities,” he said.

HIV prevalence

Karnataka has 0.53 pc HIV prevalence at antenatal clinics, ranks fifth in India.
National prevalence is 0.35 pc (2012).


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(Published 10 October 2015, 19:31 IST)

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