Vijay Mohan

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 18

Over 13 years after it was launched to provide comprehensive medical care to retired armed forces personnel and their dependants, the Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) is today faced with a severe shortage of medical staff and funds.Against an authorised strength of 322 medical specialists for ECHS polyclinics, only 128 are posted there (a deficiency of around 60 per cent), according to information released by the Ministry of Defence this month.The shortage of medical officers and paramedical staff is around 26 per cent. There are 700 doctors against the authorised strength of 955 and 1,872 paramedical personnel against the required 2,523.Launched in April 2003, the ECHS caters to a clientele of 47 lakh beneficiaries across the country through a network of 420 polyclinics and 1,445 empanelled civilian hospitals. The situation is not healthy on the fiscal front either. Against a projection of Rs 3,600 crore under the ECHS revenue head for 2016-17, only Rs 2,363.54 crore has been allocated. Under the capital head, Rs 30 crore has been allocated for this fiscal against the projection of Rs 50 crore.“In comparison to what we got last year, funds have been drastically cut this year. We have been sanctioned less than what we were expecting and it will be difficult for us to pull through for the entire year. We will require additional funding,” a representative of the ECHS has been quoted as saying in the latest report by Parliament’s standing committee on defence.The Financial Adviser (Defence Services) said this was the first year of rationalising grants and the provision of funds for the ECHS would be taken care of at a later stage. The ECHS was covered under the Army budget earlier.