Invoking Emotional Ties

Fifteen percent of the Indian diaspora and non-resident Indians are from eastern Uttar Pradesh. Settled across the globe, these people have a strong attachment to their “roots” and continue to maintain close emotional bonds with their hometown or village. Most of them have exceptional achievements to their credit and would like to contribute towards improving the health and educational facilities available in their ancestral villages. However, they do not know how to go about this. In fact no system exists to collect their contributions and channelize them into specific schemes of their choice, in a transparent yet effective manner, without leakage and minimum expenditure on overheads, salaries and the like.

A Novel Endeavour

To cater to this need and to evolve a system for attracting charity investments from NRIs for sprucing up the rural health infrastructure and financing health care schemes in UP, a proposal for establishing a Uttar Pradesh Health Foundation (UPHF) was presented by Mr. J.S. Deepak, Executive Director, SIFPSA to the UP Development Council (UPDC) on 27 November, 2003. The UPDC felt that the Health Foundation is an excellent idea for inviting charitable investment in rural health sector projects especially as the Government of Uttar Pradesh and Government of India are not in a position to invest in such infrastructure and there is an acute need for the same. The UPDC endorsed the proposal & also desired that the mandate of the Foundation should also include attracting investment from people from UP, settled in other parts of the country as well.
On the recommendation of the UPDC, the cabinet in January 2004 approved setting up the UPHF as an autonomous society. SIFPSA with its vast experience in developing public-private partnership in the health sector and expertise in managing health projects has been designated as the secretariat for the Foundation. UPHF has generated tremendous response and enquiries from NRIs originating from UP have been pouring in.

A Private Entity

The UPHF will be headed by Dr. Pratap Reddy, Chairman Apollo Hospital group. Mr. Keshav Thirani, Confederation of Indian Industries (CII), Dr. Atul Kapoor, Regency Hospital, Kanpur and Mr. O.P. Srivastava, Director, SAHARA Group will be other members representing industry and health professionals. The government representatives in the UPHF will include Chief Secretary, UP, Principal Secretary, Medical & Health, GoUP and the Executive Director, SIFPSA. Mr. Amitabh Bachchan, matinee idol and the living legend of Indian cinema, has consented to promote the activities of the foundation, as its brand ambassador.

SIFPSA has developed a number of infrastructure related projects for attracting charity investments. An interactive website for the purpose of disseminating the information and fund raising is being developed. The website will not only provide information on the shelf of projects available for charity investment, but also the updated status of the progress of activities to donors. It will also have linkages to an electronic gateway for obtaining remittances. The activities of the Foundation will be promoted both through the electronic medium as well as by links with other related web sites and through Indian diplomatic missions abroad. To ensure transparency, the Foundation would encourage donors to appoint their nominees to monitor the progress of their chosen projects.