Rao Borra

Indian social entrepreneur who revolutionized rural healthcare through mobile clinics in the 1940s

Rao Borra (1905-1972) was a visionary physician from Andhra Pradesh who transformed rural healthcare in British India through his pioneering mobile clinic system. Establishing the Borra Health Service in 1941, he designed a network of horse-drawn medical units that brought healthcare to 120 remote villages. His innovations included:

• First use of bicycles for medical outreach in South India
• Development of a low-cost vaccine storage system using clay pots
• Training of 200+ local women as health workers by 1950

Borra's 1948 book Health on Wheels inspired similar programs across Asia. His system reduced infant mortality by 40% in served areas, and his health kiosk concept prefigured modern telemedicine approaches. Despite opposition from traditional healers, he secured funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and Gandhi's Sabarmati Ashram.

His legacy endures through the Rao Borra Rural Hospital in Visakhapatnam, now a WHO model facility. The Borra Medical Museum preserves his original equipment, including the first portable X-ray machine used in rural India. Recent studies by the Lancet Commission cite his work as foundational to India's National Rural Health Mission.

Borra's diary entries, available at the Andhra Pradesh Archives, reveal his collaboration with Mexican physician Dr. Juan Morones in developing low-cost surgical techniques. His 1955 documentary Health Wheels is preserved at the British Film Institute, showing his clinics in operation.