The Jabalpur High Court on Friday has criticised health department officials for the slow progress in digitising medical records for Bhopal gas tragedy survivors.
The court’s comments came during a hearing involving the Bhopal Gas Information and Action group and the Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sagathan.
Chief Justice Suresh Kumar Kait and Justice Vivek Jain, who were handling the case, ordered that the Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Chief Secretary of Madhya Pradesh, and the Director of Bhopal Memorial Hospital Research Centre (BMHRC) meet within a week to create an action plan to speed up the digitisation process.
The next hearing is set for February 18, when the authorities will submit a progress report. In response to the court’s order, a compliance affidavit was presented.
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The affidavit explained that medical records before 2014 are very old, and about 3,000 pages need to be scanned every day. The process is expected to take about 550 days to complete, though a more exact timeline will be provided once work begins.
The affidavit also mentioned a proposal to set up a cloud server under the e-hospital project, which has been approved by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
However, it is waiting for financial approval from the Finance Department, with funds expected in the 2025-26 fiscal year. Once approved, the scanned records will be uploaded to the cloud. The NIC's proposal suggests that the entire digitisation could be completed in 12 months.
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