Monday, January 16 2006 10:01 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Ahmedabad: With the number of AIDS cases rising sharply, different State Governments, including Andhra Pradesh, have sought help from the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) here to provide its expertise in effectively managing and controlling the dreaded disease.

"Andhra Pradesh, one of the states having high prevalence of AIDS, has approached IIM-A to provide managerial expertise to officials associated with various HIV/AIDS prevention and control projects being run in the state,"Professor K V Ramani of IIM-A told sources here.

If the contract with the AP Government comes through, then the Centre for Management of Health Services (CMHS), set up under IIMA's Public Systems Group, will be training District Collectors, representatives of NGOs and managers of State AIDS Control Society, said Ramani who is also part of the Public Systems Group.

"Governments of West Bengal, Bihar and Maharashtra have also shown interest in IIM-A in this regard," Ramani said adding apart from Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and North-Eastern states are among the regions in India where there is a high prevalence of AIDS.

"Overall planning and evaluation of HIV programmes needs considerable management skills," Ramani said. "Generally, the departments of public health in India are dominated by doctor-managers who lack training in management," he said while explaining why the IIM-A help was sought in managing the HIV/AIDS projects.

"Thus, in order to make HIV projects effective, it is necessary to upgrade the management skills and capacities of not only various state and district level managers belonging to the department of health but also the workers of NGOs involved in HIV programmes," Ramani said.

"Under the training programme, IIM-A would educate the HIV/AIDS programme administrators and managers in policy, planning, implementation and monitoring activities on a regular and sustainable basis," he added.

The training would cover issues relating to Finance, Human Resources management, materials (medicines and awareness campaigns) and logistics management, Ramani said.

They will also be taught where to strategically invest scarce resources, identify new projects and address issues hindering the implementation current ones, he said.