Shillong, Mar 7: Health & Family Welfare Minister James K Sangma on Monday said an amount of Rs 59 crore has already been released to over 7,000 ASHA workers during 2021-2022.

“(This) amounts to about Rs 7,000 per ASHA worker per month on an average. Even this is about Rs 233 per day and not Rs 66 per day. I therefore, urge the members of this house and ASHA workers to not believe that it is only Rs 66 per ASHA worker a day,” Sangma said.

He was replying to a Call Attention moved by a suspended Congress legislator from Nongpoh Mayral Born Syiem in the Assembly here.

The minister also informed that the government has released a total of Rs 151 crore in the last four years for ASHAs for various incentive purposes including the pending backlogs of erstwhile Meghalaya ASHA benefit scheme (MABS) and Meghalaya Maternity Benefit Scheme (MMBS).

Of the Rs 151 crore that has been released, about Rs 79.49 crore, i.e. over 50% amount, has come from state resources, he said while adding that this is three times higher in comparison to the total release of Rs 48.87 crore during 2013-18.

Sangma further informed that the ASHA and ASHA Facilitator payment mobile application has been developed with the support of the National Health Mission (NHM).

“We have acknowledged that there is a delay in these incentives reaching in time to the ASHA workers. Hence, we had promised during last year that we will develop an efficient online claims and payment mechanism thereby reducing this delay drastically,” he said.

He said that the sole purpose of developing the Application is to ease the payment process of ASHA incentives and ensure timely disbursement of the same.

The application will also be an important support tool for programme officers at all levels as it will enable regular monitoring and tracking of ASHA payment and ensure minimum time lag in payments.

This application has been rolled out in Umling Block of Ri-Bhoi District on a pilot basis and it is expected to be implemented in the entire State by April 2022.

“I am also happy to inform that 74 ASHA workers of Umling block have successfully raised their claims and payments have been made to their accounts within 48 hours of their claims. This application is one of its kind which has been successfully integrated with PFMS as well,” he said.

Stating that the program is designed to be performance based so that there is a genuine motivation to increase service delivery, the minister said that with the coming of the new online application, the claims mechanism shall be eased and the payments will be done at the shortest possible time.