Health ministry tableau rejected again

After facing rejection for two consecutive years on the proposed tableau for the Republic Day parade, the Union health ministry has once again failed to impress the ministry of defence, with the latter rejecting its tableau themed on health ministry’s flagship scheme — Mission Indradhanush. This is the third time in a row that the ministry will not be able to participate in the 26th January parade.

Earlier in 2014, the Union health ministry’s tableau — themed on government’s success over polio was rejected by the ministry of defence for lacking “thematic and creative” content.

However, with India bagging the polio-free tag from the World Health Organisation (WHO), it once again took a chance last year and proposed the same “polio” theme. Unfortunately, the tableau got rejected again. Instead, the Ayush ministry was approved to make their debut showcasing the traditional forms of medicine on the parade.

This time the health ministry had decided to propose its tableau based on its scheme, Mission Indradhanush, which was the major scheme started by the present government. The scheme has been launched with an aim to assure full immunisation coverage by 2020, the scheme- which has run into its second phase has so far been quite successful in improving the routine immunisation coverage. The Mission Indradhanush, depicting seven colours of the rainbow, aims to cover all such children who are either unvaccinated, or are partially vaccinated against seven vaccine preventable diseases which include diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, measles and hepatitis B.

The health ministry officials had made several presentations before the expert committee that comprise of several eminent people from the field of art and culture. However, the health ministry has recently been informed about the “rejection” from the expert panel. “We are likely to take up the issue with the MoD. Lots of efforts were put in. We will put forward our case once again and see if the decision can be changed,” said a senior official. The process of tableau selection of starts in August.

The other ministries that may showcase their achievements are the HRD, Agriculture, Railways other than the tableaux by various states that will roll out on Rajpath at the 2016 Republic Day parade.