Lack of education, drug addiction plague village adopted by Kher

Charu Chhibber

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 26

Lack of education, addiction to drugs, alcohol and tobacco are some of the issues plaguing local Member of Parliament Kirron Kher’s adopted Sarangpur village. The MP had adopted the village in November 2014 under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY).

Apart from that, residents have been found to be suffering from several health problems, including acute respiratory infection (ARI), diarrhoea, reproductive tract infections and urinary tract infections, anaemia and non-communicable diseases such as hypertension and diabetes mellitus.

The fact has been brought to light by a report prepared by the Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, under its project Saanjhi.

Giving information, Dr Sonia Puri, Associate Professor, Department of Community Medicine, GMCH-32, said the facts were revealed when her team started working on health assessment of the village under Project Saanjhi undertaken by her department.

She said under the project, four villages in the city with minimal health facilities have been picked by her department with an aim to create awareness. “After Kishangarh, Sarangpur was chosen to be covered. We are also going to cover Raipur Kalan and Daria,” she said.

“Visits and interventions along with data collection was started in Sarangpur in September 2016 and are still being carried on,” Dr Puri informed, adding that initially, there was no health facility available in the village but with the intervention of Kher, a community health centre was built.

“The OPD is being taken care of at the health centre. Our focus has now shifted to generating awareness. Our main objective is to find patients who need treatment and others who are not taking treatment but not properly,” Dr Puri added.

She further informed that the other crucial area her team is working on is cancer awareness.

“There was no cancer awareness among the village residents. We are not only creating awareness but also screening the residents for cervical, lung and breast cancer and referring those with symptoms to the GMCH-32,” said Dr Puri, adding that several health related activities like weekly health camps and celebration of important health days have been conducted by her team in Sarangpur.

Fact file 

Kirron Kher, Member of Parliament (MP), Chandigarh, has adopted Sarangpur village in Chandigarh under theSansad Adarsh Gram Yojana of the Central Government.

What is Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana?

Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana is a rural development programme broadly focusing upon the development in the villages which includes social development, cultural development and spread motivation among the people on social mobilisation of the village community. The programme was launched by Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on the birth anniversary of Jayaprakash Narayan on October 11, 2014. The distinct feature of this Yojana is that it is demand driven, inspired by society and based on people's participation.