According to the Mumbai AIDS Control Society (MACS), this year the attrition rate among the outreach workers that has led to poor coverage of high risk population has been around 30 %.
Delay in getting funds from national aids control (NACO) programme has led to attrition of disoriented workers associated with NGOs involved in HIV awareness programme, seeking greener pastures even as the stakeholders in the state and city are struggling to keep the awareness programme alive in all possible ways.
According to the Mumbai AIDS Control Society (MACS), this year the attrition rate among the outreach workers that has led to poor coverage of high risk population has been around 30 %.
"The delay in distributing funds to the NGOs has definitely led to outreach workers leaving the programme for better prospects. The trend has affected the outreach programmes. While last year, our coverage was 62%, this year it is around 60%," said Dr Shrikala Acharya, additional project director, MDACS.
There are as many as 48 NGOs working with HIV high-risk categories, including sex workers, intravenous drug users, transgenders, migrants, among others. Acharya said that earlier they had 250 outreach workers, but the figure has come down to 175. Training of new counsellors has been kept on hold and salaries are stuck. The workers have not been paid their dues since September. Unlike in the past when NACO used to send funds directly to the societies, funds are now being directed to the state.
"The finance ministry is creating separate heads after which the money will be sent to the treasury and then disbursed among the societies. Maharashtra State AIDS Control Society (MSACS) will receive money from the government, which will then be given to the Mumbai District Aids Control Society (MDACS). The delay of funding started from last year," said an MSACS officer.
According to the officer, funds allocated to each of the targeted intervention projects vary from Rs8 lakh to Rs20 lakh. Community-based organisations have been badly hit because of the delay in funding. It has also led to the late procurement of medicines.
An outreach worker working with these NGOs has a monthly salary of Rs7,500. NGOs haven't received any payment since August. "We got the first installment from NACO and paid the April-May salary. For June-July-August, the money from NACO has reached state government but we are yet to receive it. However, we have given the money to the NGOs for these months by taking some amount from the BMC. We have also not utilised the money kept for integrated counselling and utilised it for giving salaries," said Acharya.
Anticipating poor coverage and attrition rates, MDACS has now started organising outreach camps in targeted intervention areas. "We had to change our strategy seeing the staff crunch. We have asked the NGOs to gives us timing. Mostly it is afternoon where our mobile vans with counselling and testing facility go. This way, we are not only reaching the high risk population but helping the NGOs save money too," said Dr Acharya.
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