Mother and Child Tracking system (MCTS)

In News: Mother & Child Tracking System (MCTS) is an e-governance initiative of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, designed to collate information of all pregnant women and infants.

About MCTS

Ministry: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
- The Health and Family Welfare Department has introduced a Mother and Child name based tracking Information management system called Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS) in collaboration with the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and National Informatics Centre (NIC).
- MCTS is a name-based tracking of pregnant women so that adequate and timely feedback may be given to the health workers who may, in turn, ensure that pregnant women receive adequate Ante-natal and Post-natal care besides encouraging institutional deliveries.
- The system also aims to track the new-borns so that timely and complete immunisation may be ensured to them.
- MCTS has been implemented in all the States / UTs.
- It covers mothers from conception till 42 days after delivery.

The infants are covered up to five years of age.

MCTS has been included as a Mission Mode Project under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP).

Objective of MCTS

To ensure delivery of maternal and child health services from conception till 42 days after delivery in the case of pregnant women and up to 5 years of age in the case of children.
An innovative characteristic of MCTS is the application of the IT-Tools for its execution right up to the village level.
It has led in its identification as an innovative e-governance project by the high power Committee constituted under the chairmanship of the Cabinet Secretary.

National Informatics Centre (NIC)

NIC was established in 1976, and has rich experience in providing ICT and eGovernance support to the Government for the last 4 decades and bridge the digital divide.
NIC has emerged as a promoter of digital opportunities for sustainable development.
It spearheaded “Informatics-Led-Development” by implementing ICT applications in social and public administration and facilitates electronic delivery of services to the government (G2G), business (G2B), citizen (G2C) and government employees (G2E).
NIC, through its ICT Network, “NICNET”, has institutional linkages with all the Ministries /Departments of the Central Government, 37 State Governments/ Union Territories, and about 720+ District Administrations of India.
It has been closely associated with the Government in different aspects of Governance besides establishing a Nationwide State-of-the-Art ICT Infrastructure, it has also built a large number of digital solutions to support the government at various levels, making the last-mile delivery of government services to the citizens a reality

National Rural Health Mission (NRHM)

NRHM aims to provide Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Health and Adolescent (RMNCH+A) services to the rural deprived people through its network of ASHA, ANMs and AWWs.
It focuses on providing fully functional, community owned and decentralised health delivery systems in rural areas.
NRHM, also called NRHM-RCH Flexipool is one of the components of NHM and is for all towns and villages below the population of 50,000.

Objectives and Components of NRHM

The essence of NRHM is a health delivery system that functions independently, is community-owned and decentralized. The mission also aims to deliver a constant support to those who contribute to the social determinants of health. Basic objectives to implement NRHM are:

Reduction in infant mortality rate and maternal mortality rate
Ensuring population stabilization
Prevention and control of communicable and non-communicable diseases
Upgrading AYUSH(Ayurveda Yoga Unani Siddha and Homoeopath) for promotion of a healthy lifestyle.

Various initiatives under NRHM