Intensified Mission Indradhanush 3.0 [Govt. Schemes for UPSC]

The Central Government launched the Intensified Mission Indradhanush 3.0 in February 2021 with a view to extending the routine immunisation program to all pregnant women and children who had missed it due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, you can read all about this important health scheme of the Indian Govt. Govt. schemes are a crucial segment of the UPSC syllabus.

Intensified Mission Indradhanush:- Download PDF Here

Mission Indradhanush is an important topic for candidates preparing for IAS Exam.

What is Intensified Mission Indradhanush?

The Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI) was launched in 2018 by the Central Government with the objective of covering all children under the age of two and pregnant women for immunization who were not covered under the UIP.

• This program was to intensify the Mission Indradhanush that had been launched in 2014.
  • The objective of Mission Indradhanush was to have a 90% coverage of the UIP in India by 2020 and sustain the same.
• IMI 2.0. was launched in December 2019 and continued up to March 2020, to further extend the reach and coverage of the mission, including tribal and hard-to-reach areas.
• Although the scheme comes under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), it is supported by many other ministries/departments such as:
  • Ministry of Information and Broadcasting 
  • Ministry of Panchayati Raj
  • Ministry of Women & Child Development
  • Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
• The diseases covered under the mission are polio, diphtheria, measles, whooping cough, hepatitis B, tetanus, meningitis, rubella, Japanese encephalitis and pneumonia.

The below table will give you links to other important health schemes of the government.

Intensified Mission Indradhanush 3.0

In February 2020, the Central Government launched IMI 3.0 to further extend the coverage of the national immunization programme. The main objective of the mission is to reach the unreached population with respect to immunization and offer all the available vaccines under the Universal Immunisation Programme – UIP to all pregnant women and children under two years of age. The ultimate goal of the campaign is to achieve complete universal immunization in India.

Coverage of IMI 3.0

• It will have two rounds this year which will be conducted in 250 pre-identified districts/urban areas across 29 States/UTs. The districts have been classified to reflect 313 low risk, 152 medium risk and 250 high risk districts.
• Beneficiaries from migration areas and remote areas would be targeted as they may have missed their vaccine doses during the pandemic.

Significance of IMI 3.0: It will foster India’s march towards the Sustainable Development Goals. Aspirants can know in detail about the Sustainable Development Goals – SDGs on the given link.

Since the mission is being implemented even as the COVID-19 pandemic is still persisting in the country, the officials and people involved in the mission have been advised to follow all the required protocols of social distancing, masks, etc.