Bhopal, Feb 27 (IANS): The Madhya Pradesh government on Thursday signed an MoU with Dorabji Tata Trust to provide better healthcare services in the state.

Primary health services will be improved through Arogyam Health and Wellness Centres in the state under the MoU.

Chief Secretary S.R. Mohanty, on behalf of the state government, and former state chief secretary and Vice President of the Dorabji Tata Trust, Vijay Singh signed the MoU.

A committee comprising representatives of National Health Mission and Tata Trust will be formed to monitor the implementation of the project.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath said the state government aims to provide better health facilities to the public in urban and rural areas.

Continuous efforts are being made in this direction for a year now.

"Our top priority is to extend benefits of state-of-the-art medicine to the people. There is a need to work with a strong monitoring mechanism and innovative thinking for the assured delivery of quality health services," said Kamal Nath.

The Health Department and Tata Trust will initially work in five centres each in 23 high priority districts. Thus, the 115 identified health and wellness centres will provide technical and managerial support to the programme.

In the fourth year, Tata Trust will expand the programme to 500 health and wellness centres.

Each of these districts will have an electronic record saved in an urban primary health centre.

Tata Trust will also provide healthcare support by creating data for referrals and follow up about cases of pregnancy, hypertension, diabetes and cancer.