Cuttack, March 27: The National Institute of Rehabilitation Training and Research (Nirtar) at Olatpur, 30km from here, is set to launch an online ticket registration system for its outpatient department (OPD).

"We will start an online ticket registration system for the OPD from Wednesday to relieve the patients from standing in long queues," Nirtar's nodal officer for the project Pabitra Kumar Sahoo told The Telegraph today.

"The facility will enable the patients to register online or through a text message," Sahoo said.

National Informatics Centre has developed the online registration system for Nirtar under the Digital India Initiative. The patient has to come to the OPD on the assigned day or they will have to register again.

Nirtar is an autonomous institute under the department of disability affairs of the Union ministry of social justice and empowerment.

The institute undertakes rehabilitation programmes and provides medical assistance to the orthopedically handicapped and patients of allied health problems. Patients with orthopaedic disabilities due to various ailments, congenital deformities, leprosy, burn contracture and similar problems and hearing and speech disabilities are treated and rehabilitated here.

People with disabilities requiring artificial limbs and other rehabilitation aids and appliances are provided here to prevent the impairment leading to disability and to help them carry on with their daily activities and lead a normal life. There are five departments - physical medicine and rehabilitation, prosthetics and orthotics, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and hearing - at the institute.

A Nirtar authority said the primary objective of the institute was to integrate the physically challenged people with the mainstream in the society. He said the rehabilitation is provided through a 100-bed hospital, specialised units and clinics of the five departments.

"To avail the online facility, a patient has to register himself through a common portal www.ors.gov.in. A text message alert will be sent after he registers himself at the site," said NIC's nodal officer Dilip Mohanty.

"A print out of the registration ticket will be issued to the patients once they produce the code sent on their phone through a text message. This will save time particularly for the patients coming from outside Cuttack and Bhubaneswar," Mohanty said.

Around 200 patients visit the OPD on every day.

"Introduction of this facility is the first step toward implementation of the e-hospital project in the institute," said Sahoo.