Hyderabad: President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam will Thursday (Feb 1, 2007)commission India's first tele-radiology network aimed at providing radiology services in rural areas at minimum cost.

Under the network developed by a group of institutions, radiology experts will offer advice on images of patients sent from hospitals in rural and peripheral areas and provide instant consultation.

Kalam, who is arriving on a two-day visit to Andhra Pradesh Wednesday night, will commission the network at Tolichowki here.

The network has been developed by Kakarla Subbarao Radiological and Imaging Educational Sciences Trust, Care Foundation, US Electronics and Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL).

According to Subbarao, a long-time friend of the president, the first network of its kind in the country connected Hyderabad's Care Hospital to the Maa Scan and Research Centre in Guntur and another diagnostic centre.

It is proposed to establish connectivity with 10 diagnostic centres in a year and 50 centres across the country by 2009.

Kalam will also deliver the 77th annual convocation address at Osmania University here before leaving for Mantralayam in Kurnool district, where he will visit Sri Raghavendra Swamy Mutt and interact with students of a Sanskrit school. The president will then leave for Kurnool to participate in the golden jubilee celebrations of the Kurnool Medical College.

Kalam will return to Hyderabad to dedicate to the nation a laboratory for conservation of endangered species and inaugurate the 65th annual meeting of the All India Ophthalmological Society before returning to New Delhi.