Tinsukia, July 28: Five mobile medical units (MMU) were inaugurated and pressed into service today in Upper Assam's Tinsukia district to provide various healthcare facilities to tea garden workers in the region.

The initiative came almost a month after Union minister for health and family welfare J.P. Nadda launched the mobile medical unit (MMU) service for tea workers in 320 gardens in 12 districts of the state.

Tinsukia BJP legislator Sanjoy Kishan inaugurated the MMUs. "In the first phase, 37 tea gardens will be covered for which nine mobile medical units will be deployed," he said.

"Each MMU includes two vehicles - one equipped with an outpatient department (OPD), laboratory and other medical facilities and the other to be used for transportation of human resources. The OPD vehicle is also equipped with diagnostic and laboratory equipment," Kishan said.

"Each MMU will be manned by a medical officer, an auxiliary nurse midwife (ANM), a pharmacist, a laboratory technician, an ophthalmic technician, two drivers and a helper," he added.

The legislator said lack of health facilities for the large number of tea workers across the state and high maternal mortality rate among them were the major areas of concern so far.

"In order to address these issues, the Centre had signed an MoU with a private company to provide health services in the gardens," Kishan said.

Joint director of health service of the district Altaf Ahmed said, "One MMU will be allotted for a cluster of four to five tea gardens. Each unit will camp in one tea garden for at least five days at a stretch before moving to the next nearby garden. The particular MMU would cover the cluster for nearly a month and then return to the first garden."

Sources said the project officer of the service provider has been entrusted to coordinate with the National Health Mission and tea garden management to form the clusters and allot the MMUs accordingly.

"Assam's tea garden population amounts to about 20 per cent of the state's total population and the entire section is deprived of basic healthcare facilities since Independence," a source said.

"In the first phase itself, an estimate of over 1 lakh tea workers are likely to benefit from the MMUs," the source added. So far, eight MMUs have been deployed in Tinsukia and soon one more would be pressed into service, deputy commissioner Oinam Sarankumar Singh told The Telegraph .