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A scheme under the National Health Mission, Assam
From the desk of Dr. Manoj Choudhury
Executive Director, National Health Mission
An Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) is a trained female community health activist programme. This scheme is presently in place in 33 states. The state of Assam has the opportunity to boast of having a huge and dedicated workforce of ASHAs who are serving the community in terms of any health attention sought by the community. They are serving as a bridge between the community and healthcare service providers. The community also considers the ASHAs as the first and most reliable point of call whenever any issue related to health arises. The ASHAs are mainly involved in facilitating the delivery process of pregnant women right from the onset; they are keen to take care of the pregnant women by ensuring full antenatal care services, and they are also concerned about the completion of the immunization process of a child. They also have a strong desire to facilitate family planning services, etc.
The ASHAs, both morally and technically, in their assigned work. The State has the strength of 2877 ASHA Supervisors.
Each ASHA Supervisor supports a team of 10-12 ASHAs and provides supportive supervision to achieve the targeted goals.
At the BPHC level, there are Block Community Mobilizers who are positioned to support the ASHAs and ASHA Supervisors. The present strength of Block Community Mobilizers stands at 149, nos. against the 149 BPHCs of the State.
At the district level, District Community Mobilizers are placed who are responsible for guiding the BCMs, ASHA Supervisors, and ASHAs. The state has the strength of 27 nos. of DCMs who are placed in all 27 districts.
At the state level, there is a community process cell that is responsible for the implementation of the approved activities by the Government of India. The cell is also involved in formulating the strategy for each task and rolling out of the same. The cell has one State Community Mobilizer, one ASHA Programme Manager, one Data Management person, and an administrative assistant.
The ASHA’s are the voluntary workers, they are entitled to different incentives against the particular task accomplished by her. At present, there are 70+ categories of activities assigned to them for which they are eligible to claim the incentive provided they complete the activity. Further, there is also a provision for claiming of routine 2000/- incentive per month against 8 nos. of activities (GoI) and an additional Rs. 1000/- from State Govt budget against 13 essential activities. The State has also developed an ASHA online payment module through which all the incentives are paid to ASHAs through PFMS. For claiming of ASHA incentive they use the master claim form where all the 70+ category of ASHA incentive has been mentioned.
