Health and Family welfare department of Andhra Pradesh has decided to distribute 2358 homoeopathy medicine kits to all the social welfare hostels in the state.

According to sources, the state government had ordered the commissioner KP Vasuki, department of Ayush to implement the primary healthcare programme in the social welfare government hostels in the state. Based on that, the commissioner had issued notice to the government homoeopathy pharmacy at Ramanthapur to prepare preventive medicines to be distributed to social welfare hostels in all districts of the state.

Though the programme looks to be seen as a part of government’s plan to boost healthcare in the government educational institutions, the initiative seems to have come from chief minister Kiran Kumar Reddy, who had been touring sometime back to various government schools and hostels during the ‘Indiramma Bata programme’ in the state.

The move of the government can also be viewed in the context of recent increased spread of various viral diseases among the students in the residential hostels across the state.

In view of this, the Government Homoeo Pharmacy had prepared 2358 homoeo medicine kits that are ready to be distributed through zonal RDD departments of Ayush to concerned joint directors of social welfare officers in all the districts of the state.

“As per the directions of the Commissioners we had prepared 2358 homoeo medical kits that are ready to be distributed to all social welfare hostels in the state,” said Dr S Kishan, chief superintendent of Government Homoeo Pharmacy at Ramanthapur.

For the year 2012-13, the state government had allocated about Rs.583 lakhs for the department of Ayush, of which Rs.1 crore is allocated for the preventive medicines. Rs.15 lakhs have been allocated for the rural homoeopathy dispensaries in the state and Rs.20 and Rs.12 lakhs have been allocated to Ayurveda and Unani medicines respectively for the current year.

At present, there are 2358 hostels and other social welfare institutions under the control of Social Welfare Department in the state. Of which 1640 constitute boys hostels and 718 constitute girls Hostels. The combined strength of boys and girls in these hostels is around 2, 26,652. For the year 2012-13 the state government had allocated an amount of Rs.16799.70 lakhs for the social welfare hostels in the state.