Other States - Orissa   

Travel allowance for AIDS patients

BERHAMPUR: Orissa has become the first State in the country to give travelling allowances to the AIDS patients for their travels to Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART) centres.

Although this scheme has become officially effective from April 1, it is yet to be practically implemented properly. But the State Government has already made financial allocations for the payment of travel allowances to the AIDS patients coming ART centres. It may be noted that Orissa was also the first State in the country to consider AIDS patients as physically handicaps and to announce monthly allowances for them.

The Railway Ministry had also announced 50 per cent concessions in train travel to HIV positive persons from this year.

At present only one ART centre is running effectively in the State in the MKCG Medical College campus. The other ART centres in the SCB Medical College, Cuttack and VSS Medical College, Burla are not functioning due to lack of manpower.

Speaking to The Hindu, Parameswar Swain, Project Director, the Orissa State Aids Control Society (OSACS) said the process of payment of travel allowances would be streamlined soon.

According to him every AIDS patient who has visited ART centre after April 1 but not got the travel allowance would be paid for this visit during his next visit to the ART centre. Mr. Swain said the officials of the blood bank of the Red Cross in the MKCG Medical College would disburse the travel allowance as per the original bus or train ticket to the AIDS patient at the ART centre.

The Red Cross blood bank would get the paid amount reimbursed by the Red Cross Society of the district of the patient later.

On Monday about a hundred persons had gathered up at the ART centre in the MKCG medical college campus. Most of them were AIDS patients who had come for the continuation of their medication. But none of them knew about this new scheme of travel allowance declared for them by the State Government.

There were also no officials to disburse the travel allowances to the AIDS patients, who had reached the centre from all over the State.

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