The Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) has approved an incentive of Rs 500 a month for all tuberculosis patients for the duration of the treatment, irrespective of their income level.
The money is for nutrition support, as TB is known to be a disease of undernutrition. The incentive amount, though, is a fourth of what was envisaged in the National Strategic Plan for TB Elimination released earlier this year with the aim of eliminating the disease by 2030. That deadline has since been revised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The total annual expenditure sanctioned by the committee of the department of expenditure, which has to vet all scheme spending before the schemes get final approvals, is Rs 900 crore for 26 lakh patients.
Read more of this in a report by Abantika Ghosh published in The Indian Express...
