Letters to The Editor: Need for a mental healthcare system

Need for a mental healthcare system

The recent incident on the Nagaon bypass, brought to public attention through social media, deserves more than momentary applause. Professor Dr Surjit Kumar Bhagawati reportedly covered a mentally distressed, unclothed woman with his shirt, which is an extraordinary act of compassion in an otherwise disturbing situation. Her gesture of gratitude reminds us that mental distress does not erase a person’s dignity or humanity. She deserves appropriate mental healthcare, protection, shelter and sustained rehabilitation, not merely temporary removal from public view.

The incident also raises a larger question: why do persons with mental illness and homelessness often become visible to the State only when their presence becomes a law-and-order, civic or VIP-visibility concern?

The Mental Healthcare Act, 2017, particularly Sections 18 and 19, recognises the right to access mental healthcare and the right to live in the community. Section 100 also provides a statutory framework concerning individuals with mental illness found wandering in public places and requiring care and protection. Yet the gap between these legal guarantees and their implementation remains stark. Hospitals often face limitations in retaining patients for prolonged periods when adequate community-based rehabilitation and aftercare infrastructure is unavailable. The State therefore needs a structured community mental-health outreach system, integrated with existing ASHA and National Mental Health Programme mechanisms. Accredited NGOs can be brought into a coordinated framework for psychiatric care, shelter, rehabilitation, skill development and gradual social reintegration, with appropriate convergence between the Health, Social Justice and Skill Development departments.

The government should also establish a clear SOP for police, municipal authorities and railway police to identify vulnerable persons, facilitate professional assessment and treatment, and ensure lawful transition from hospital care to shelter, rehabilitation and community-based follow-up.

Dr Bhagawati restored one woman’s dignity for a moment. The government must now ensure that dignity is not dependent on the kindness of an individual but becomes a permanent feature of the state's mental health system.

Shahin Yusuf

Guwahati

The aftermath of floods

Through the columns of your esteemed daily, I wish to highlight an issue that arises after every flood. As floods wreak havoc and attract attention for a few days before fading from memory, the most critical situation begins only after the water subsides. People return to homes buried under debris, with contaminated drinking water and stagnated water breeding disease. Cholera, typhoid, diarrhoea and hepatitis A spread rapidly, while mosquitoes breeding in stagnant water cause malaria and dengue. Respiratory illnesses from overcrowded relief camps further burden weak healthcare systems. The destruction is not limited to property. Loss of life and displacement of thousands is tragic as farmers lose their entire harvests, labourers lose wages, while roads, bridges, embankments and schools are destroyed, cutting off villages for months. Certain measures must become regular practice. Post-flood health monitoring through mobile medical units, water chlorination and mosquito removal are some important practices. Agricultural recovery through short-duration seeds, soil testing and prompt crop insurance settlements must follow quickly. Embankments, roads and bridges should be sincerely monitored and constructed to withstand future floods. Floods may be inevitable, but their devastation should not be if we move from reaction to genuine flood management.

Meghna Konwar

Guwahati, Assam

Data Centres – a tech opportunity for Assam?

The Prime Minister’s Independence Day address from the Red Fort on August 15 has once again brought India’s technological ambitions into focus. The prime minister spoke of semiconductors as a critical component of the modern economy and highlighted India’s growing efforts to establish its semiconductor manufacturing capacity. For Assam, this vision has already translated into a remarkable achievement. The Tata Semiconductor Assembly and Test facility at Jagiroad, with an investment of around Rs 27,000 crore and a planned capacity of 48 million semiconductor units per day, is one of the country's major semiconductor projects. It is expected to create thousands of direct and indirect employment opportunities and develop indigenous advanced packaging technologies. The project has demonstrated that Assam can attract investments in highly sophisticated industries when land, infrastructure, policy support and administrative facilitation come together.

Interestingly, the Prime Minister also spoke about another sector that is likely to shape the coming years—data centres. He placed data centres alongside AI, quantum technology and robotics as part of the new technology landscape. This presents Assam with another opportunity. Can we now make a serious effort to attract large data centre investments to the state and gradually build Assam into an important IT and digital infrastructure hub in India? The possibility certainly deserves consideration. Assam can create dedicated data centre zones with uninterrupted power, multiple high-speed fibre connections, reliable water and cooling infrastructure, disaster-resilient buildings, suitable land and a stable investment policy. The benefits could be substantial. Data centres would bring high-value investment and skilled employment and support start-ups and cloud-based businesses. They could also create an ecosystem of ancillary technology and service industries. Jagiroad has shown that Assam can successfully enter a new-age industrial sector. The next step could be to build upon that confidence and make Assam a destination for India's future digital infrastructure. I hope experts, industry leaders, and policymakers will share their views on how to seize this opportunity.

Chandan Goswami

Kumaranichiga, Dibrugarh

Concern over

uninsured vehicles

The recent news report that approximately sixty percent of vehicles (both two- and four-wheeled) in India remain uninsured and this gigantic number has caused not only furore in the concerned circle but also shed light on serious failures of the regulatory bodies or law agencies of the government across the country.  The immediate fallout of this troubling situation is that ordinary people are deprived of compensation when they face road fatalities caused by uninsured vehicles on our country's notorious roads. Given such a situation, our Union Transport Minister once remarked that he felt ashamed to attend the International forum where the issue of country-wise road accidents and measures for prevention are reviewed, as India is marked by a large number of road accidents with fatalities despite the density of vehicular traffic being much lower than in the US or some other Asian countries. The Supreme Court of India has expressed deep concern, urging the government to crack down on law violators using technology, which requires sobering thought and urgent action.

Tanuj Goswami

Jorhat