Port Blair, Oct. 28: The Health Ministry has introduced an initiative called ‘Ni-kshay Mitra’ which allows individuals to adopt Tuberculosis patients and look after their nutritional and medical needs in a bid to eliminate the stigma surrounding the disease in India. The programme was brought in to fill the critical ‘community’ elements into India’s fight towards Pradhan Mantri TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan aimed at eliminating TB by 2025.

Ni-kshay Mitra (Donor) for this programme includes Co-Operative Societies, Corporates, elected representatives, individuals, institutions, Non-Governmental Organisations, political parties and partners who can support by adopting the health facilities (for individual donor), blocks/urban wards/districts/States for accelerating the response against TB to complement the Government efforts, as per the district-specific requirements in coordination with the District Administration.

Shri Suneel Anchipaka, Deputy Commissioner/Chairman, District Health Society (SA) has appealed the NGOs, Civil Societies Organisations, Religious Groups & individuals to come forward to provide nutritional support to the TB patients for which they may register themselves in the Ni-kshay 2.0 portal @ https://www.nikshay.in  to join with this campaign to eliminate TB by 2025. The support provided by Nikshay Mitra to the patient under this initiative is in addition to the free diagnostics, free drugs and Ni-kshay Poshan Yojana provided by the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) to all the TB patients notified from both the public and the private health facility.

Accordingly, as per the initiative of District Administration towards community involvement for providing nutritional support to TB patients of the Society, 18 donors were registered under South Andaman District namely Shri Arjun Sharma, IAS (Secretary(Health)), Shri Anil Agarwal, DANICS (MD, NHM), Dr. S P Burma (Joint Secretary, NTEP), Shri. D.M Prabhakar Rao, Tehsildar/Executive Magistrate, Dr. P Lal, (District TB Officer), Goenka’s Group, Annachi Chennai Store, Laksh NGO, Canara Bank, TSG Foundation, Port Blair Guru Ki Rasoi, Good Samaritan Club, International Human Rights Council, Police Public Friends Association, Cycle Brand, Thomas Cares Foundation, Gayatri Pariwar and Maruti Prasad Tangirala and also provided nutritional kits to 146 beneficiaries of South Andaman District.