In a facilitation ceremony organised by ex-servicemen in Dehradun in November 2021, Uttarakhand Governor, Lt. Gen. Gurmit Singh (Retd.), shared his vision of empowering Uttarakhand and focusing on rural rejuvenation, women empowerment, youth employment and uplifting the ex-servicemen and their families staying in rural areas.
During this event, the ex-servicemen requested the team of Rashtriya Sainik Sansthan to implement a project in medicine in rural areas involving ex-servicemen and their families, as it is the need of the hour. At that time the seed for inception of this project was sown. In a board meeting of Rashtriya Sainik Sansthan, it was concluded to launch projects in four key areas in Uttarakhand – Health, Education, Environment and Technology in phases. It was decided to launch an AI-based project in telemedicine – Jan Mitr in first phase. “Jan-Mitr” will be an ex-serviceman or his family member who will be trained to provide door-to-door service to rural people to connect them to a doctor through an app online, free of cost.
These health warriors, both men and women will be given comprehensive training and provided with a medical kit (free of cost) that will enable them to provide support to patients by measuring their temperature, sugar, blood pressure, etc, and sharing their parameters with a doctor online for their diagnosis. These “Jan Mitrs” will be provided a basic remuneration for their services. A mobile number will be assigned and circulated in the village for the people to contact them. Training of “Jan Mitrs” for a pilot project is being scheduled in Uttarakhand.
On 16 November 2021, a team of Rashtriya Sainik Sansthan comprising Major Sushil Goel (National convenor and AI Expert), Dr. Anupama Lakhera (President Education and Health Uttarakhand) together with Profs. Jyotirmoy Goswami (President, West Bengal Chapter) and Soumyajit Roy (Vice-President, West Bengal Chapter) met Governor of Uttarakhand – Lt. Gen. Gurmit Singh (Retd.) to share their vision of introducing numerous projects in Uttarakhand in four core areas. During this enriching discussion, the concept of the project on telemedicine – Jan Mitr with value-added Artificial Intelligence enabled systems, by Rashtriya Sainik Sansthan was discussed with the Governor of Uttarakhand.
In keeping with the vision of the Governor of Uttarakhand to reach out to the farthest district and last village through Veterans and Sainiks, subsequently, numerous other projects will be launched for education, health, environment and technology for the upliftment of underprivileged in rural areas including ex-servicemen and their families. Projects related to ESD (Employability-based Skill Development), agri-based projects promoting Agripreneurship, and various other projects are in the pipeline to be launched subsequently.