Background:"Strengthening the level of demand generation by the community from the perspective of health and sanitation solely depends on the expertise of the ASHA who is a voluntary worker chosen by the community."
Presently the state of Assam has the opportunity to boast on 30619 huge and dedicated workforce of ASHAs who are serving the community in terms of any health attention sought by the community. They are serving as a bridge between the community and health care service providers. The community also consider the ASHAs as the first and reliable port of call when there is any issue related to health arises. The ASHAs are mainly involved in facilitating the delivery process of a pregnant women right from the onset; they are keen to take care of the pregnant women by ensuring the full ante natal care services, they are also concerned about the completion of the immunization process of a child, they also have a strong desire to facilitate the family planning services etc.
Further to support the ASHAs both morally and technically in their assigned work the State has strength of 2877 nos. of ASHA Supervisors. Each ASHA Supervisor is supporting a team of 10-12 nos. of ASHAs and providing supportive supervision to achieve the targeted goals.
At the BPHC level there is Block Community Mobilizers who are positioned to support the ASHAs and ASHA Supervisors. The present strength of Block Community Mobilizers stands at 149 nos. against the 149 nos. of BPHCs of the State.
At District level District Community Mobilizers are placed who are responsible for guiding the BCMs, ASHA Supervisors and ASHAs. The State has a strength of 27nos. of DCMs who are placed in all the 27 districts.
At State level there is community process cell that is responsible for implementation of the approved activities by the GoI. The cell is also involved in formulating the strategy against each task and rolling out of the same. The cell has one ASHA Programme Manager, one State Community Mobilizer, one Data Manager and one Consultant (Community Process) supported by RRC_NE.
To strengthen the capacities of the ASHAs, they have been trained under Module 1 to 5 for 23 days, round 1 to 4 of Module 6th and 7th for 20 days. The newly selected ASHAs have undergone induction training for 8 days prior to 20 days of round 1 to 4 of Module 6th and 7th. Through the contents of the training the confidence level of the ASHAs have boost up as they have gained subject wise knowledge and different skills to tackle the health related issues.
As the ASHAs are the voluntary workers, they are entitled for different incentives against the particular task accomplished by her. At present there are 55 categories of activities assigned to them for which they are eligible to claim the incentive provided they complete the activity. Further there is also provision for claiming of routine 1000/- incentive per month against 8 nos. of activities. The State has developed a hand book of ASHA incentive manual mentioning the name and entitled amount for each of the 55 activities and the handbook has been shared with each of the ASHAs for their understanding. The State has also developed a ASHA online payment software through which all the incentives are paid to ASHAs through PFMS. For claiming of ASHA incentive they use the master claim form where all the 55 category of ASHA incentive has been mentioned.