The Government provides financial support to States/UTs under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) for strengthening their health systems including for emergency medical transport of patients based on the requirement posed by the State/UTs in their Programme Implementation Plans.

The present status of patient transport including Ambulance Services supported under NRHM in the country is as follows:

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*Support provided for POL only.

Note:  Dial 108 type is primarily designed to transport patients of critical care, trauma and accident victims etc. Dial 102 type ambulance is a patient transport system, primarily to transport pregnant women for institutional delivery and also sick infants

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare undertakes evaluations of Emergency   response systems (ERS) in the states through National Health Systems Resource Centre such as:

       i.            Study of EMRI Model in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh in 2009

     ii.            Study of MMU-104 services in 2011

  iii.            Study of ERS services in three districts of Andhra Pradesh in 2011

  iv.            Study of Haryana SwasthyaVahan Seva in 2012

     v.            Study of EMRI in Haryana and Andhra Pradesh in 2012

  vi.            Study of ERS services in Kerala in 2013

vii.            Study of ERS services in Punjab in 2013

The evaluations have primarily pointed out the improvement in access to healthcare brought about by the Emergency Response Services under the NRHM. One of the major recommendations is that the number of ambulances be increased to one per 60,000 – 80,000 population as against the existing norm of one ambulance per lakh population so as to ensure that effective service capacity is higher than the ambulances work load The shortcomings mainly related to operational issues like fake calls, duplicate calls, call drops and monitoring time taken to reach the patient.

Under NRHM, the capital cost for emergency response transport is fully supported while the operational cost is supported on a diminishing scale of 60% in the first year, 40% in the second year and 20% from third year onwards. For patient transport vehicles primarily used to transport pregnant women for institutional delivery, both the capital and operational costs is fully supported.

The funds/financial assistance approved for the purpose during each of the last three years and the current year, State/UT wise are as follows: 

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* Approval pended due to non-compliance of National Ambulance Service (NAS) guidelines.

The Government received proposals from most States/UTs for implementation of the scheme in their Programme Implementation Plans in the current year. The details and the current status of the proposals are as follows:

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*Approval pended due to non-compliance of National Ambulance Service (NAS) guideline

 This was stated by Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare in a written reply to the Lok Sabha today.

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MV/GM