Mission Uttaran, a project to reduce maternal & child mortality formally launched by DC Jalli

Dec. 6: Deputy Commissioner, Cachar Keerthi Jalli, paid her visit to Koomber Tea Estate on Saturday where she was invited as a chief guest at a programme organised by District Health Society at Polo Ground. DC Jalli formally launched the “Mission Uttaran” in presence of Sumit Sattawan, ADC (Health), Joint Director of Health Services, Dr. Sudip Jyoti Das, District Social Welfare Officer, Saswati Shome, tea garden manager, officials from Health, NHM, Education, Social Welfare, PHE, SMC&H and a good number of local tea garden women and adolescent girls.

The Project “Mission Uttaran” was conceptualised by Rahul Ghose, DPM, NHM, Cachar. Mission Uttaran, a special innovative project taken up by the District Health Society, Cachar to reduce maternal mortality, child mortality and total fertility rate in the tea gardens of Cachar. The Mission has been so named because ‘Uttaran’ signifies upliftment or improvement from the present status. Comparative high incidence of maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate in tea gardens has necessitated for formulation of a comprehensive strategy to improve health parameters in tea garden areas. This would have a holistic approach and amalgamation of a convergent initiative by related government and non government entities.

The Health, Social Welfare, PHE, Education and NRLM departments will play very significant role to meet the objectives of the Mission. Under the Mission, there will be Uttaran groups in all labour lines which will be constituted by involving mothers group, in-laws, ASHAs, ANMs, AWWs, Jeevika Sakhis, bagan panchayat members, SHGs etc.and they will act as catalyst for the Mission.

The Uttaran group will work for mobilising resources for the benefit of mother and child and to save their lives too. In every tea garden, there will be a Nodal Medical Officer who will be the Single Point of Contact (SPoC) for its implementation. The issues related to health, nutrition, health seeking behaviour, pure drinking water, girl education, women empowerment etc would be the priority issues for Uttaran group and the Nodal Medical Officer being the SPoC will keep networking with the members of the group regularly to address the issues and to take up issues and problems with higher authorities.

Initially 28 tea gardens have been taken up under the Mission and remaining ones will be covered in later phase. The support from tea garden MMU, Piramol Swasthya, Nehru Yuva Kendra and other CBOs will be taken to meet the objectives of the Mission. Regular monitoring by all related government departments and periodic review will take place followed by corrective measures to improve the implementation process further.

Inaugurating the special initiative, Deputy Commissioner, Jalli while addressing a large gathering of women and adolescent girls, bagan panchayat members of Koomber tea garden stadium, said, “I request all of you to act as a catalyst at your family level and taking care of women and children in your family should be your first priority. Government departments will extend all possible support to bring a radical change in the tea gardens but you all have to take the Mission Uttaran as a Jan Andolan to improve yourself”. She appealed to the people to take a pledge that no mother and child should die due to ignorance or lack of information. “The Uttaran group will carry the correct information to every household of tea garden”, she quipped.