Three districts from Kashmir have shown 60-80 percent reduction in Tuberculosis cases in the last five years.
A report issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare under the Government of India’s National TB Elimination Programme for the year 2021, a copy of which lies with the news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), says that three districts from Kashmir division – Anantnag, Kupwara and Pulwama – have shown 60-80 percent reduction in TB cases in the last five years and have secured gold medals under the programme.
Five other districts in India which have secured gold medals are Malappuram and Wayanad in Kerala, Khargone in Madhya Pradesh, Ahmednagar in Maharashtra, and Purba Mednipur in West Bengal.
As per norms, districts or States/UTs which reported a decline of 20 per cent could have filed the claim under the ‘Bronze’ category which comes with a monetary award of Rs 2 lakh, those with a decline of 40 per cent could have filed the claim under ‘Silver’, and those with 60 per cent could have filed their claim for ‘Gold’. Those with 80 per cent reduction were to be conferred with ‘TB Free’ status with a monetary award of Rs 10 lakh as part of sub-national certification for TB Free districts and States.
In Jammu Kashmir, Anantnag, Kupwara and Pulwama have shown progress of 60-80 percent reduction in TB cases and have claimed Gold category while Baramulla district has shown progress of about 20 percent and is under Bronze category along with 55 other districts in the entire country.
Earlier, the Ministry had sought claims from States/UTs, districts of the country for sub national certification in 2021 and 10 States/UTs filed claims. However, no state/UT managed to secure gold but Kerala, Dadra Nagar Haveli and Pondicherry secured silver while Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Tripura and Ladakh secured Bronze. J&K and Karnataka failed to get any success as a whole State/UT.
Similarly, 201 districts of 33 states/UTs had filed claims under different categories in which 8 including three from Kashmir secured gold, 27 districts (none from J&K) secured silver, and 56 districts including Baramulla from Kashmir secured Bronze. The rest failed to get any success—(KNO)