Aadhaar Card mandatory for TB patients in Telangana

Aadhaar card has now been made mandatory for tuberculosis patients availing treatment at government hospitals in the State under Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP).

Through a gazette notification issued last week, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has made it mandatory for TB patients to furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or Aadhaar authentication to access treatment. The details of the patients will be uploaded in the web-based application Nikshay, which is the centralised website through which RNTCP is administered in the country.

TB health officials here have said that Aadhaar card was a mandatory step towards strengthening the implementation of TB eradication programme in the State. Aadhaar authentication for treatment will remove chances of patient data duplication, which has been the case for a long time in the



State, doctors said.

Tracking and making sure that the TB patients have adhered to a six-month long treatment has been a major challenge for TB control authorities. In fact, lack of adherence of the drugs by TB patients has been a major impediment in the success of TB control program in the State.

“Apart from treatment, the RNTCP program also provides nutritional benefits to individual patients. These benefits and administration of TB medication can be tracked by linking Aadhaar card details through Nikshay website. This move will also solve the problem of duplication of records in Telangana,” said TB WHO Consultant, Ch Chakrapani.

Health officials, however, clarified that those patients who do not have Aadhaar card will not be denied treatment. They would be simply asked to apply for the Aadhaar card while the treatment goes on.