Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India’s Post

The Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to Government of India, Prof. Ajay Kumar Sood, chaired a stakeholder meeting today to deliberate and discuss the way forward with MANAS, a scalable digital solution for mental wellbeing supported by the Office of PSA. The meeting was joined by Dr V.K. Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog Official; Dr (Mrs.) Parvinder Maini, Scientific Secretary, Office of PSA; Dr Madhuri Kanitkar, Vice Chancellor, Maharashtra University of Health Sciences ; Mr. Saurabh Jain, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare; Dr Pratima Murthy, Director, National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), India; S D Sudarsan, Ph.D., Executive Director, Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) Bengaluru; and Dr. Tarun Uppal, Director - Cybersecurity, Ministry Of Home Affairs (mha), GOI. Project teams from C-DAC Bangalore, NIMHANS, Bangalore and Armed Forces Medical College (AFMC), Pune were also present. In his address, Prof. Sood highlighted the digital resource gap and dearth of indigenous digital tools in the realm of mental wellness and therefore the emergent need to explore possible synergies for integration and dissemination of MANAS for delivery of services. Dr Parvinder Maini emphasised on the scope and potential of MANAS as an intervention for mental health and how various stakeholders can come together to create an end-to-end efficient ecosystem for delivery of mental health services. Representatives from Ministry of Health and Family Welfare provided inputs on their existing interventions and platforms under their mental health programme, while representatives from Ministry of Home Affairs emphasized on the severe mental trauma faced by women and children who have been victims of cyber-crime and therefore the need to have interventions at various levels through their scheme on Cyber-Crime Prevention against Women and Children. Representatives from C-DAC Bangalore, NIMHANS Bangalore and AFMC, Pune presented the major milestones achieved in the development of MANAS. The meeting delved into insights for potential integration and convergence between stakeholders. The meeting concluded with a shared commitment to collaboratively develop a roadmap for possible integration and dissemination through MANAS for providing mental health services. Hafsa Ahmad Dibojit Pathak