Public Relations in Public Health: A Study on Niramaya Scheme of Odisha Government

Public health is an important commodity for any nation or government. The health enjoyed by citizens determines the physical fitness of a country and therefore nations spend crores of money for this essential commodity. Many programmes and schemes are being rolled out to enable people to attain and maintain optimal health. In this context, PR plays a pivotal role in attaining the objectives of these programmes. Effective PR strategies enable governments to discharge their obligations in a better manner. This paper explores the PR strategies used for a free medicine distribution scheme, ‘Niramaya’ by the state government of Odisha in India. The researchers chose two major government hospitals of the densly populated Ganjam district of Odisha for the pilot study. The study says a few number of PR tools are being used for the scheme. However, it is observed that the scheme's success is mostly dependent on mouth publicity.