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posted 10/02/06

Boosting Capacity Is Crucial to Improving Health and Education in Rural India

Dr. Nirupam Bajpai (right), Senior Development Advisor & Director, South Asia Programs, with the Honorable Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India in New Delhi on September 4, 2006.

Started in late 2004, the two-year project "Scaling-up Services in Rural India" (SSRI), funded by the Hewlett Foundation, surveyed the quality of health and education services in three states — Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan — which together account for one-third of India’s total population of 1 billion.

"Not only do these three states account for a third of India’s population, they also account for a third of India’s poor, most of whom live in rural areas," said Nirupam Bajpai, Senior Development Adviser and Director of the South Asia Program at the Earth Institute. "Making sure that these communities have access to quality services in education and health would be a significant step in fighting poverty."

Project workers have distributed 900 questionnaires in the districts to gauge how people perceived the quality of services in health and education. Bajpai and his team surveyed 10 villages each, visiting schools and health centers, and interviewing teachers, students, parents, doctors, and other stakeholders in the communities.

Based on their findings, Bajpai feels his team has gathered substantial information highlighting opportunities for improvement to be made by the local and national governments.

One of the primary challenges to improving these sectors is finding funds to scale up services, especially in the health sector. Bajpai will be meeting with Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh, India’s Planning Commission and the leadership of the state of Rajasthan in November to discuss the findings of their work on ways to improve coverage and the quality of services being provided.

In early September, Bajpai met with the Prime Minister Singh to review the Earth Institute's work in Rajasthan in the past eight months.

"We hope to support these objectives by boosting capacity — training health workers and strengthening service centers," said Bajpai, who is based at the Earth Institute's Center on Globalization and Sustainable Development.

Bajpai is engaging with both local and national officials to lock in commitment to help the poorest of the country have access to the critical services they need. Bajpai and the SSRI team of Earth Institute experts are working with faculty from the Indian Institute of Management at Ahmedabad to help scale-up the provision of essential services such as health care and education, among others, in some of the most underserved areas of India.

The SSRI team's work will complement the efforts of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), launched by Prime Minister Singh to improve the conditions in the rural areas of 18 NRHM focus states (there are a total of 28 states in India). Under the Chairmanship of Jeffrey D. Sachs, an international advisory panel has been established which will help determine how best to achieve the objectives set by the NRHM.

For more information about Scaling Up Services in Rural India, read past interviews with Nirupam Bajpai:

http://www.earth.columbia.edu/news/2006/story05-25-06.php

http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/2005/story12-19-05.html

http://www.earthinstitute.columbia.edu/news/2005/story07-15-05.html

About The Earth Institute
The Earth Institute at Columbia University is the world's leading academic center for the integrated study of Earth, its environment and society. The Earth Institute builds upon excellence in the core disciplines — earth sciences, biological sciences, engineering sciences, social sciences and health sciences — and stresses cross-disciplinary approaches to complex problems. Through research, training and global partnerships, it mobilizes science and technology to advance sustainable development, while placing special emphasis on the needs of the world's poor. For more information, visit www.earth.columbia.edu.