Assam's Boat Clinic Gets NRL Funds

By Supratim Dey

The unique boat clinic initiative in Assam, which is run by the Centre of North East Studies and Policy Research (C-NES) and caters to people living in islands on the river Brahmaputra, got a boost with Numaligarh Refinery Ltd (NRL) coming forward to support the initiative as part of its corporate social responsibly.

NRL has announced a sponsorship amount of Rs 12 lakh to C-NES and the first installment of Rs 4 lakh was recently handed over by BK Das, managing director of NRL, to Sanjoy Hazarika, trustee of C-NES. 

C-NES boat clinic initiative was first launched in 2005 with a single boat called Akha (meaning hope in Assamese) on the river Brahmaputra in Dibrugarh in Upper Assam. In 2008, the initiative got a boost when National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) partnered it.

Today, C-NES has boat clinics in 13 districts of Assam and provides basic healthcare services through these specially designed boats to lakhs of people living on river islands.

On board the boat clinics are full fledged medical teams – two doctors, three nurses as well as lab technicians and pharmacists, which conduct regular camps organized through a network of community health workers and organizers in the districts.

"Among the most marginalized people in Assam, nearly 30 lakh or 10 per cent of the state’s population live on its islands in the mighty Brahmaputra and for decades have struggled to survive at a basic level. The boat clinic initiative aims at catering to this section of deprived people" said Hazarika.

Hazarika said the goal is to reach 10 lakh persons, or one third of the state’s vulnerable population, who live on islands in the Brahmaputra by 2011-12, with a special focus on women and children, who are the most vulnerable in difficult conditions.

The boat clinic initiative has been able to cover 3 lakh people by now, Hazarika added.

Assam has India’s worst Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) at 480, higher than Bihar or Uttar Pradesh, and a high Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) too.

Hazarika said the boat clinic initiative, since its launch, has been getting support from the public sector units such as Oil India Ltd (OIL) and from tea industry as well as from international agencies like the Unicef.

"We are delighted to welcome NRL as our newest partner in this mission of taking sustained health care and other development services to this excluded population. Ours is primarily a partnership with the National Rural Health Mission but we have important support from the public sector units such as Oil India Ltd and members of the tea industry as also from an international organization such as UNICEF," Hazarika said.

The districts covered by boat clinics are Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Dhemaji, North Lakhimpur, Jorhat, Sonitpur, Morigaon, Barpeta, Nalbari and Dhubri, with new boat clinics soon to commerce work in three new districts of  Kamrup, Goalpara and Bongaigaon.