Village Resource Centre Initiative

This initiative draws on partnership as a strategy for creating space-technology-enhanced facilities designed to improve the lives of rural populations. Karuna Trust has set up Primary Health Centres (PHCs) 34 locations; the VRCs are located in 19 of those locations, spread over Chitradurga, Kolar, Chamarajanagar, Mandya, Mysore, Belgaum, Shimoga, Uttara Kannada, Bellary, Koppal, Bijapur, Dharwad, Davanagere, Bangalore (rural) and Bangalore (urban) districts of Karnataka. One Technology & Resource Development Centre was established in Mysore to serve as a central location to monitor VRCs, document and analyse data from the ongoing projects, and conduct various training programmes.

Specifically, satellite-based communication and remote sensing provided by the ISRO are bringing services to rural areas, including telemedicine, tele-education, watershed management, land use data, registration of documents, and access to health indicators of the population. To cite one example, residents of Chamarajanagar, a border District of Karnataka situated 60 kilometres from Mysore, reportedly did not have access to quality emergency care. A pilot project called the Integrated Telecardiology and Telehealth Project (ITTP) was initiated through a collaboration between Narayana Hrudayalaya and Karuna Trust with permission from the government of Karnataka. The goal was to provide the best emergency cardiac care with instant advice from a cardiologist. The telemedicine facility is linked via satellite to a base hospital in the metropolis. The unit consists of a cardiac care unit (CCU) with the requisite equipment and a facility for transmission of recordings like echocardiograms (ECGs), X-rays, etc. Experts and consultants opine on the reports and history at the other end, and remedial measures are offered, which doctors then administer locally. Karuna Trust says that "[t]his service not only makes available the latest in medical services at the doorstep of the rural poor but also ensures capacity building of all the medical staff at the remote locations with that of the latest happenings in the medical world. At a later date this facility could also be used for conferencing, which will go a long way in enriching the services available at remote locations."

The VRCs are also used to monitor the activities of the Arogya Mitras (field-level staff exclusively appointed for the project in each PHC). The facility is also used to offer centralised training to the Arogya Mitras: one programme focused on data collection and prioritisation of health condition, and the other prepared personnel to educate the public about traditional medicine through demonstration plots, presentations for schoolchildren, and the creation of nurseries.

Health, Technology, Natural Resource Management.

Instituted in 1986, Karuna Trust is a public charitable trust active in the field of rural development. Through public-private partnership initiatives, Karuna Trust seeks to design and implement replicable and innovative models in the areas of health, education, and livelihoods. "Karuna Trust believes in community based, people oriented, need based, culturally acceptable methods using appropriate technology with minimum cost to the community."