Dispur pledges to end infant & materl mortality

BY OUR STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI, April 24: Assam will pull and push all its resources and expertise to eradicate infant and materl mortality and deaths due to various other communicable diseases in the state by 2030.

Such an assertion came from Assam Government officials and experts during the country’s first daylong conclave on achieving Sustaible Development Goals (SDGs) for health, water and sanitation.

The conclave saw experts from health, water and sanitation sectors having brainstorming deliberations as how to achieve the SDGs in the three fields in Assam by 2030. Even though experts admitted that it would not be possible to fulfill all SDGs, the Assam Government officials asserted that the government will leave no stone unturned to eradicate infant and materl mortality and deaths due to various other communicable diseases by 2030.

State Chief Secretary VK Pipersenia, while addressing the conclave at Assam Administrative Staff College here on Monday morning, said that the state had set its target to achieve SDGs in 2015.

Quoting Jeffrey Sachs, American economist and special adviser to the secretary general of UN that Assam became the first state to adopt a draft vision document on SDGs, Pipersenia said it was another landmark day on Tuesday when the State Health and Family Welfare Department organized a daylong conclave as how to achieve SDGs in the healthcare sector.

Pipensenia said money would not be a hurdle to achieve SDGs if three Ps (People, Partnership and Project) work effectively. He said the government builds hospitals and it is an unfortute commentary that these hospitals filly remain as buildings without doctors, nurses and patients. “Such development must come to an end to achieve SDGs in the health sector,” he said.

The Chief Secretary asked the health department to replicate the recently concluded Gunotsav in schools and colleges also in hospitals and health centres in the state to bring about accountability.

The erstwhile Congress government in the state unveiled Assam Vision 2030 in February 2016 to chalk out a roadmap as how to achieve SDGs in different fields in the next 15 years.   

Though the millennium development goals ended in December in 2015, different tions across the globe had been achieving these goals at different levels. This had resulted in extensive deliberations among the member tions of the UN regarding sustaible development goals in the next 15 years. The United tions General Assembly adopted a resolution on September 25, 2015 for sustaible development comprising 17 goals and 169 targets under the official agenda, Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustaible Development. These 17 goals are ending poverty in all forms, ending hunger, achieving good health for all, quality education for all, gender equality, clean sanitation and water, affordable and clean energy, employment and economic growth, industrialization and innovation, reducing inequalities, responsible consumption and production, climate change, protecting life under water, conserving life on land, achieving justice and peace and partnerships to achieve these goals.