The second phase of the World Bank assisted Rs 900 crore Karnataka Health Systems development and Reforms Project has commenced in the state with a focus on improving maternal and child health besides addressing the responsibility of reducing burden of communicable diseases.

At the project launch, Karnataka chief minister H D Kumaraswamy said, that the government has decided to ensure supply of free medicines in all Primary Health Centres and Hospitals to the poor throughout the year.

Karnataka was the first state to get World Bank assistance for the second time, following the successful implementation of the first phase of the project, stated the chief minister adding that it would help improve healthcare delivery system in rural and remote areas.

The main objective of the five-year project is to increase utilization of essential and public health services, particularly in under-served areas and among vulnerable groups so as to accelerate achievement of health related millennium development goals, informed Karnataka Health Minister R Ashok.

The project also includes strengthening of basic health interventions such as immunization, safe delivery, pre and post-natal care, prevention and treatment of diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections and major communicable diseases.

Meanwhile the state government has decided to upgrade the existing 50-bed hospitals in 170 talukas to 100-bed capacity, for which Rs 43 crore has already been released.

Under the maternal and child health initiative, a budget of Rs 162 crore has been sanctioned. It is targeted to improve the health of poor women and children in the rural and tribal areas and urban slums. Its key objective is to increase the pace of the country's progress in maternal and child health under the Millennium Development Goals charter.

For the communicable diseases, the Second National Tuberculosis Control Project will take off under the Union government's health and family welfare programmes. The aim of the NTCP is to ensure that 70 per cent diagnosis in the country and achieve 85 per cent cure where Directly Observed Treatment Short Course (DOTS) has been under achieved for five or more years to decrease the incidence of smear-positive tuberculosis.