One Crore Women Registered Under Mother & Child Tracking System
MCTS Recognised as Innovative E-Governance Project
The total number of pregnant women registered in Mother & Child Tracking System(MCTS), an e-governance initiative of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, has crossed the one crore mark on 28 October, 2011. The Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS) is designed to collate information of all pregnant women and infants so as to ensure delivery of maternal and child health services from conception till 42 days after delivery in the case of pregnant women and up to five years of age in the case of children so as to ensure that all pregnant women and all new born receive full maternal and immunization services. The number of children registered in the system is also expected to cross 50 lakh by the end of this month.
MCTS was started by the MoHFW last year. Speaking on the landmark achievement of MCTS registrations, Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad remarked that “MCTS marks a paradigm shift in the approach towards monitoring health and family welfare programmes as it is aimed at ensuring complete delivery of maternal and child health services to all pregnant women and new born in an effort to reduce maternal, infant and child mortality in the country”. Through MCTS, Government of India is making efforts to institutionalise the beneficiary based approach of monitoring health and family welfare services’ delivery, the Minister added. The Minister also made sample verification calls to registered women under the MCTS database from the MCTS cell in the Ministry to verify the database entries today.
Under MCTS, an online registration system has been developed for the purpose, in collaboration with the National Informatics Centre. A nationwide training programme had been organised throughout the country to operationalise the system. In addition, a call centre has been established in the Ministry of H&FW to directly contact pregnant women and parents of the new born registered under the system to verify the services that they have received. MCTS is being implemented throughout the country with active cooperation and involvement of State Governments. The project is being implemented in the Mission Mode and a dedicated unit has been established in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for coordinating and collaborating with States/Union Territories for the implementation of the project. The information generated through the system is also being used for planning maternal and child health services at the grass roots level by the female health worker in association with village level volunteers like ASHA and Aanganwadi Worker.
MCTS serves two vital purposes as it facilitates the service provider at the grass roots level in delivering services to women and children according to their specific needs besides supporting health managers at different tiers of the system in monitoring delivery of maternal and child health services. An innovative feature of MCTS is the application of the information technology tools for its implementation right up to the village level. The information technology based innovative approach adopted in the implementation of MCTS has resulted in the recognition of MCTS as an innovative e-governance project by the high power Committee constituted under the chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary, Government of India.
— PIB
