See full case study - Indiagovernance.gov.in

Governance Knowledge CentrePromoted by Department of Administrative Reforms and Public GrievancesMinistry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Government of IndiaTransparency and AccountabilityCase StudyE-Governancee-MamtaMarch 2012sensitization programmes and workshops and rewarding and acknowledging theircontributions through incentives and awards.Moreover, the work plans have reduced a significant proportion of the manual workundertaken by the fieldworker. With the access to a comprehensive and detailed set ofdata in the form of a work plan, the field workers have been able to organise theirroutine visits and effectively discharge their duties of informing beneficiaries about thehealth services that needed to be availed.v. Community ownership and participation: To secure increased participation of thetargeted communities can continue to remain a major roadblock. Several factors mayrestrict their active involvement in the initiative such as high level of unawareness,illiteracy and resistance to change. For example, in most rural areas, women prefer todeliver at home based on traditional ional practices. This has been a primary reason for highrate of maternal mortality. It can be challenging to replace such traditional practices thathave been adopted for years and develop awareness about the need to access medicalassistance and care for safe motherhood. With help of ANM/ASHA workers, efforts arebeing made to bridge these gaps and integrate more women from rural and urban(slum) areas into primary health care system.vi.Infrastructure deficiencies: The ‘e-Mamta’ is an ICT enabled initiative. To ensure itseffective implementation especially in areas which may not be technologicallyadvanced, can be posited as an operational limitation of the system. Restrictions in theform of connectivity and electricity supply in backward areas can severely constrain thesystem. While the system also functions in an offline mode, operating the software inthis form may render data updating a major challenge.vii.Technological constraints: One of major highlights of the initiative is the use of mobiletechnology to improve the delivery of health services. However, this can also constrainthe goals of the programme in a significant way. The low end mobile phones used forinformation dissemination are not supported by the local script. Although messages aresent in local language, these are typed in English.Adequate steps have been taken to train local health workers in English and in mobilephone based information dissemination.13Researched and documented byOneWorld Foundation India