"Till now the health ministry's focus was on mother and

child healthcare and sub-centres were limited to immunisation and some anti-natal check ups.

"Now through this conversion, we are going to enhance the capacity of these sub-centres. We are starting universal screening, under which hypertension, diabetes, cervical cancer, breast cancer and oral cancer screening will be done in 100 districts this year," he said.

Nadda said the conversion of this 1.5 lakh centres will be done in a phased manner.

This is a very important step and is going to reduce the occurrence of disease as far as cancer is concerned, as most cases of cancer in India are detected in third or fourth stage which is very late, the minister said.

About the National Dialysis Programme, officials said it is already running in 294 district hospitals, and approval has been given to 516 such hospitals.

Officials said around 80,000 patients have already been benefited from it and asserted that no other programme launched has picked up at such a fast pace.

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)