All that was discussed in the House through the day
India’s doctor-population ratio is 1:834, assuming 80 per cent availability of registered allopathic doctors and 565,000 Ayurvedic, Unani, Siddha and homeopathic doctors, Mansukh Mandaviya, Union minister of health and family welfare told the Rajya Sabha April 5, 2022.
There are 1,301,319 allopathic doctors registered with state medical councils and the National Medical Commission as of November 2021. There are 289,000 registered dentists and 1.3 million allied and healthcare professionals in the country.
There are 3.3 million registered nursing personnel according to Indian Nursing Council records. This includes 2,340,501 registered nurses and midwives and 1,000,805 nurse associates. The nurse-population ratio in the country at present is 1.96 nurses per 1,000 population, Mandaviya said.
Public health spending
The Department of Health and Family Welfare has been making consistent efforts to increase public health spending, Bharati Pravin Pawar, minister of state in the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare told the Rajya Sabha.
The budget allocation for the Department has increased by 50.5 per cent to Rs 71,269 crore in 2021-22, from Rs 47,353 crore in 2017-18. The budget estimate for 2022-23 is Rs 83,000 crore.
TB deaths
Some 4,320 people died due to tuberculosis in India last year, compared to 5,417 deaths in 2020, Pawar told the Rajya Sabha. The reported deaths due to TB have remained at around four per cent over the last two years, Pawar added.
Honey adulteration
Some 28,347 of 107,829 samples of honey analysed in Indian states and Union territories (UT) in 2020-21, did not conform to food safety standards, Pawar told the Rajya Sabha.
The sampling was done after commissioners of food safety in all states and UTs were advised to inspect all honey manufacturing units under their jurisdiction.
They were especially told to look out for the presence of golden syrup / invert sugar syrup / rice syrup / high fructose corn syrup or any other sugar syrup in the premises and also check the use of such syrups in honey, Pawar said.
These syrups are common adulterants in honey according to Regulation 2.8.3 of Food Safety and Standards (Food Products Standards and Food Additives) Regulations, 2011, which was amended November 15, 2021.
Delhi-based non-profit, Centre for Science and Environment had reported on the large-scale adulterations being carried out in honey units across India in a 2020 expose.
Hydroelectric power plants
India will install 98 hydroelectric power plants with an aggregate installed capacity of 58,197 megawatt (MW) at various stages in the future, RK Singh, Union minister of new and renewable energy told the Rajya Sabha.
Coal-Fired plants
There are 181 coal-based power plants with a capacity of 203,900 MW in the country as on February 28, 2022, Singh said. Chhattisgarh has 26 coal-based power plants, followed by Maharashtra with 23 and Uttar Pradesh with 19. Assam has only one coal-based power plant, Singh added.
Renewable energy parks
The Union government is implementing a scheme to set up 50 solar parks with an aggregate capacity of 40,000 MW in India, Singh said.
Solar energy
India lost 29 per cent of its utilisable global horizontal irradiance potential due to air pollution between 2001 and 2018, according to a recent study carried out by the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
The average loss in output incurred by solar power systems with the horizontal, fixed-tilt, single-axis and dual-axis trackers due to air pollution is estimated to be 12 per cent, 26 per cent, 33 per cent and 41 per cent respectively.
This is equivalent to a loss of $245-835 million annually, Singh said.
Soil erosion
The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) reported soil erosion (soil loss of more than 10 tonnes per hecatre per year) in India as 92.4 million hectares under cultivable area, Narendra Singh Tomar, Union minister of agriculture and farmers welfare told the Lok Sabha.
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