Lucknow, Dec 12 (IANS): Tele-medicine and tele-radiology facilities will be made available across Uttar Pradesh from January next year, Health Minister Siddharth Nath Singh said on Wednesday.

The Minister said that as part of the scheme 150 mobile units would hit the roads to enable poor people in far-flung areas to go for diagnosis and treatment.

Work on tele-medicine services, he further said, would begin by dividing the state into two clusters and 28 districts would be covered in the first phase.

Singh also said in tele-medicine, tele-consultancy and video-consultancy would be done, while in tele-radiology, services like X-ray, CT scan and MRI would be made available to the people.

The districts which would get the facilities in the first phase are Hamirpur, Chitrakoot, Allahabad, Fatehpur, Kaushambi, Pratapgarh, Kanpur rural, Bhadohi, Mirzapur, Chandauli, Sonebhadra, Ghazipur, Jaunpur, Varanasi, Azamgarh, Ballia, Mau, Basti, Sant Kabeernagar, Siddharthanagar, Bahraich, Gonda, Balrampur, Shrawasti, Deoria, Kushinagar, Maharajganj and Gorakhpur.

Acknowledging that the state government medical facilities had only 107 radiologists against 917 posts, Singh said the gap would now be filled the by mobile units.

He also said a total 51 hospitals in Uttar Pradesh were undergoing upgradation and beautification under a project of the World Bank and the Uttar Pradesh Health System Strengthening Project (UPHSSP). Of these, 10 would be dedicated to the public in January by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.