CHANDIGARH:Due to the Punjab government not receiving National Health Mission (NHM) funds for the past 18 months, the AAP-led government now relented and agreed to change the names of nearly half of the Aam Aadmi Clinics (AACs) across the state. Additionally, the photo of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann will be removed from their facades.Sources said that the name of those Aam Aadmi Clinics (ACCs) will be changed as the branding of those clinics will be tweaked, on which the money from the National Health Mission comes and is spent. There are around 870 Aam Aadmi Clinics (AACs) in the state, of which names of approximately 400 such clinics will be changed as the process has almost begun. Also, the photo of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann will be removed from the facade of these clinics.As the state government has accepted to make the changes the central government has also agreed to give the money from the centre under the NHM scheme. Around Rs 650 crore will be given to the state government under this scheme but it will only come in installments, said sources.It was in February 2023 that the union government stopped NHM funds to Punjab claiming that the AAP-led state government was branding centrally sponsored health and wellness schemes as AACs. After the talks, the state government offered to tweak the branding and add the Centre’s flagship scheme, Ayushman Bharat, on the AAC facade.The AAP government had been blaming the Union government for the stalemate over the non-release of NHM grants totalling Rs 650 crore and another Rs1,100 crore under special assistance by the Centre.
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