Monday, March 22, 2004		Feature

EHI in Chautala's district
Pamela Bhagat

THE district office complex of Sirsa is no different from most others in the country - dusty, disorderly, crowded and unclean. Merely 255 km from New Delhi, it is the richest district of Haryana. District Commissioner A Suresh, observes that the people here are not technologically shy.

It is on this premise that Suresh implemented the laying of fibre optic cables for information technology (IT) and TV penetration in the district. While cable television has a commercial potential - an expected turnover of Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 per village - making IT cost-effective requires both a viable business model and an attitudinal change.

"The road blocks here are not just technology related, as we had imagined, but also attitudinal," comments Roshan Lal, Sirsa's Sub-Divisional Magistrate. His reference was to the unresponsiveness of some government officers who view this entire process as an additional burden.

Perhaps the greatest challenge in terms of applying information technology is in the health sector. "Rural India faces a dual health problem," says Dr Uma Nambiar, who has initiated and is implementing, the EHI or the 'electronic health initiative' in Sirsa. Nambiar is a senior neurosurgeon at the Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Centre, Delhi. In theory at least, EHI is simple enough. It is being piloted in three villages of the district. Comprehensive health information of individual villagers is recorded in the database at the health kiosks. These kiosks are connected to the central health information centre at the Primary Health Centre (PHC), which maintains the updated health records. Villagers are issued laminated health cards that carry identification numbers besides specific health information for emergencies.

The interim budget of 2004 has allocated Rs 2.5 billion to popularise e-governance down to the block level. Besides this, there is a separate allocation of Rs 800 million to bridge the IT gap between rural and urban areas.

Sirsa holds the record of reflecting one of the worst sex ratios in the country - 880 women per 1000 men. The day-to-day social reality here is heavily gender-prejudiced. The effort of this e-governance project is to make the e-kiosks more gender friendly - approachable, efficient and corruption-free - by employing only women as data entry operators. E-governance seems to be the new mantra for development but its real potential can only be realised when it is effectively employed to benefit all stakeholders. Whether the realisation of its utility and the attempts at focussed action will yield the desired results, still remains to be seen.

— Women's Feature Service