Mental health has been added in the package of services under comprehensive primary healthcare provided at Ayushman Arogya Mandirs as part of the government's efforts to integrate mental healthcare services at primary healthcare level, Union Health Minister J P Nadda told the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.

The government has upgraded more than 1.73 lakh sub health centres (SHCs) and primary health centres (PHCs) to Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, Nadda said responding to a question.

The District Mental Health Programme (DMHP) is implemented under the National Mental Health Programme in 767 districts of the country to detect, manage and treat mental illness at district hospitals.

Facilities are also made available under the DMHP at the community health centre (CHC) and PHC levels and include outpatient services, assessment, counselling/psycho-social interventions, continuing care and support to persons with severe mental disorders, drugs, outreach services, ambulance services etc, Nadda said.

Nadda further informed that the government launched the 'National Tele Mental Health Programme' (NTMHP) on October 10, 2022, which would function as the digital arm of the DMHP to provide universal access to equitable, accessible, affordable and quality mental healthcare through 24x7 tele-mental health counselling services.

For this, a toll-free number (14416) has been set up across the country.

Specific objectives of the programme are to exponentially scale up the reach of mental health services to anybody who reaches out any time across India by setting up a 24x7 tele-mental health facility in each of the states and Union Territories of the country.

The aim is also to implement a full-fledged mental health service network that, in addition to counselling, provides integrated medical and psycho-social interventions and to extend services to vulnerable groups of the population and difficult to reach populations, Nadda stated.

As on November 22, 2024, 36 states and Union Territories have set up 53 Tele-MANAS Cells.

Tele-MANAS services are available in 20 languages based on the languages opted by states.

More than 15,95,000 calls have been handled on the helpline number, Nadda said, adding Rs 120.98 crore, Rs 133.73 crore and Rs 90 crore have been allocated for the NTMHP for 2022-23, 2023-24 and 2024-25, respectively.

The government launched the Tele-MANAS mobile application on the World Mental Health Day on October 10, 2024. The Tele-MANAS mobile application is a comprehensive mobile platform developed to provide support for mental health issues ranging from well-being to mental disorders.

Under the tertiary care component of the NMHP, 25 Centres of Excellence have been sanctioned to increase the intake of students in post graduate (PG) departments in mental health specialities as well as to provide tertiary-level treatment facilities.

The government has also provided support to establish/strengthen 47 PG departments in mental health specialties in 19 government medical colleges and institutions, Nadda said.

For increasing the number of psychiatrists in the country, Post Graduate Medical Education Board (PGMEB) of the National Medical Commission (NMC) issued the Minimum Standard of Requirements for Post-Graduate Courses-2023 (PGMSR-2023) on January 15, 2024.

For starting/increasing seats in MD (Psychiatry), the number of OPD has been brought down to 30 per day for annual intake of maximum two PG students with 20 per cent increase for each additional seat, Nadda said.

Similarly, the minimum beds required per unit for starting MD (Psychiatry) course with two, three and five seats in a medical college is eight, 12 and 20 beds, respectively. Under the National Health Mission, incentives and honorarium are provided for encouraging specialist doctors to practice in public healthcare institutions in rural and remote areas of the country.

The government is also augmenting the availability of manpower to deliver mental healthcare services in the underserved areas of the country by providing online training courses to various categories of general healthcare medical and para medical professionals through the digital academies, established in 2018, at the three Central Mental Health Institutes, namely the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, Bengaluru; the Lokopriya Gopinath Bordoloi Regional Institute of Mental Health, Tezpur, Assam; and the Central Institute of Psychiatry, Ranchi.

The total number of professionals trained under Digital Academies are 42,488, Nadda said.

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