Union Health and Family Welfare Minister J.P. Nadda on Tuesday launched 80 Mobile Medical Units (MMUs) for Assam's tea gardens, saying they would make healthcare accessible to the tea garden community.

Holding Assam's identity is synonymous with its tea gardens, Nadda pointed out that the large working labourer population in the tea gardens are, however, yet to get health care facilities and that the high Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) among pregnant women in tea garden areas have been a major cause of worry so far."To address this concern, the MMUs have been launched to provide healthcare in interior tea gardens," he said.The 80 MMUs launched on Tuesday as part of the first phase will cover 320 tea gardens of the state, with one MMU to cover four each, halting there for seven days at a stretch to attend to the patients.

"After the seven days, the particular MMU would move to the next tea garden. Completing the cycle of nearly a month, the MMU would return to the first village and begin its operation," said Nadda.He said that depending upon the performance of these MMUs, more such units would be added in the coming days which would bring down the operational gap from one month to fifteen days.Noting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given lot of impetus to development works in the northeast, Nadda stated that setting up of the AIIMS near Guwahati would be a huge fillip to the healthcare scenario of the state as well as the region and Rs 1,000 crore has already been earmarked for it.

Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said that the state government with the active cooperation of central government is focussing swift implantation of development works in the tea gardens and all round development in sectors like health and education would be achieved for the tea community.He called upon the people to take advantage of the government schemes and cooperate fully with the government for swift implementation of the schemes.Sonowal also said that the AMRIT Pharmacies in the five Medical Colleges of the state at Dibrugarh, Tezpur, Guwahati, Silchar and Barpeta have been able to provide essential medicines of heart ailments and other critical diseases at subsidised rates which have brought succour to underprivileged sections of society.