Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee asked health secretary Naraya to consider creating a diploma course for doctors who would be able to work primary healthcare centres in order to help mitigate the shortage of doctors in rural Bengal. In 2016, Abhijit Banerjee, co-founder and co-director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL), co-authored a study in Bengal's Birbhum, which showed that the mainstreaming of informal medical practitioners can improve unlicensed healthcare in addition to addressing doctor shortages.
