New Delhi, July 5 (IANS) The Indian Council of Medical Research’s (ICMR) flagship initiative, ICMR-MINDS, a National Health Research Priority project, has been conferred the Gold Award in its category at the National Awards for e-Governance, an official said on Sunday.

The ICMR-MINDS was awarded in Category 2 — Innovation by Use of AI and Other New Age Technologies for Providing Citizen-Centric Services — at a presentation ceremony held during the 29th National Conference on e-Governance (NCeG) 2026, in Jaipur on July 1–2, said the official in a statement.

The award has been instituted by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, said the statement.

The award was presented by Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, in the presence of Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore, Minister for Information Technology and Communication, Government of Rajasthan; V. Srinivas, Chief Secretary, Government of Rajasthan; and Nivedita Shukla Verma, Secretary, DARPG and Department of Pension & Pensioners’ Welfare, said the statement.

ICMR-MINDS is an implementation research study on the integration of screening and management of mental and substance use disorders with other non-communicable diseases, said the statement.

Its Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) enables task-shifting of standardised mental health screening, assessment, follow-up, and routine management from specialists to trained non-specialist frontline healthcare providers, backed by evidence-based digital decision support, it said.

The platform offers standardised digital screening and assessment workflows, role-based clinical guidance, offline functionality, multilingual interfaces, and gamified features to sustain user engagement, alongside real-time administrative dashboards for monitoring service delivery and reducing dependence on specialists, said the statement.

A key strength lies in its continuity-of-care framework, which supports structured referral and bidirectional back-referral pathways — allowing stable patients to receive follow-up care at their nearest health facility while specialists focus on complex cases, said the statement.

This optimises specialist time, empowers frontline providers to deliver standardised mental healthcare, improves treatment adherence, eases the burden on tertiary care centres, and reduces patient dropout across the continuum of care, it said.

–IANS

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