Nagaon, March 6: The Upper Assam district is becoming a role model for other parts of the country, all eager to emulate its successful implementation of a maternity service programme.

Uttaranchal is adopting the Nagaon model for implementing the health services programme funded by the European Commission (EC), which has been hailed as a major success story in the Assam healthcare sector.

The project in Nagaon district ? the first in the state to be selected by the European Commission ? has succeeded in considerably bringing down the infant and maternal mortality rates.

A high-level team of the Uttaranchal government, led by the state?s health minister, the director-general of the central health services and the European Commission?s programme officer for southeast Asia, D. Varma, are scheduled to arrive in Nagaon on Wednesday.

They will inspect some of the first referral units run under the EC programme. Six health centres in the district were upgraded to first referral units under the EC programme.

?The team will mainly observe the working style in the first referral units to find out the secret behind our success,? a health services department official declared.

In 1999, Nagaon was the first district in the Northeast to receive a grant-in-aid from the commission under its infrastructure development project.

Six other districts ? Jorhat, Golaghat, Kamrup (urban), Nalbari, Silchar, and Tezpur ? were later brought under the umbrella of the commission last year.

?We completed our first action plan six months back and our second action plan was approved recently. Nagaon has already won the distinction of being the best district as far as smooth functioning of the first referral unit is concerned,? said Nagaon joint director Usharanjan Bhattachayee.

?The first referral units are provided sufficient manpower and machinery to carry out basic surgeries related to childbirth. Generally, the delay in bringing patients to hospitals in district headquarters leads to the death of mothers and/or babies. By establishing first referral units in the interior areas, a reduction in the mortality rates has been achieved,? senior health officer Apurba Sarma said.