PATNA, Feb. 6 -- The Bihar government has set February as the deadline for all government doctors to complete registration on the Health Professional Registry (HPR) dashboard under the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM), officials said on Thursday. The HPR will enable doctors to issue digital prescriptions, a key step towards the government's push for paperless healthcare delivery. The initiative aims to streamline consultations, diagnostic investigations and free drug dispensing in outpatient departments (OPDs) of government health facilities, from district hospitals down to health sub-centres. Officials said compliance remained uneven. Of the 12,896 government doctors in the state, only about 66% have completed HPR registration so far, while 87% of the 34,214 government nurses have enrolled. The situation is worse in the private sector, with less than 11.9% of doctors and 14.5% of nurses completing the process. "We have asked all civil surgeons to ensure completion of HPR registration for all doctors and nurses in the public sector within the next 10 days, and in any case by the end of this month," said Shashank Shekhar Sinha, CEO, Bihar Swasthya Suraksha Samiti and state mission director of ABDM. Sinha warned strict action would follow non-compliance. "From March onwards, civil surgeons have been instructed to initiate administrative action, including stopping salary disbursement, for doctors and nurses who fail to register." Vikram Pagaria, director of the National Health Authority (NHA), which implements the ABDM, suggested linking HPR registration with the login credentials of government doctors and nurses on the Bihar Health Application Visionary Yojana for All (BHAVYA). BHAVYA is an ABDM-compliant platform designed to digitally manage patient records and services at health and wellness centres. Senior officials said reluctance among some doctors stems from the Aadhaar-based nature of HPR registration, which can reflect their engagement across multiple health facilities. They added that absenteeism linked to private practice by some government doctors has also been a concern....