The Union cabinet has given its final seal of approval for setting up the six NIPER-like institutions in the country for which it had given 'in principle' approval in August 2007. All these new institutions will be developed on the lines of NIPER, Mohali which was set up in 1991.

The government proposes to set up six National Institutes of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) at Ahmedabad (Gujarat), Hyderabad (Andhra Pradesh), Hajipur (Bihar), Kolkata (West Bengal), Rae Bareli (Uttar Pradesh) and Guwahati (Assam).

The `in principle' approval for organizing the classes in six new NIPERs was only for two years 2007-08 and 2008-09. With the final approval of the union cabinet, the present system of operation of the six new NIPERs would be possible for the next two years so that the proposal is finally considered and approved by cabinet committee on economic affairs (CCEA).

With this the government has fulfilled the demand of pharmaceutical industry to meet its long drawn demand of highly skilled trained manpower. This would also help in providing better healthcare to people in the long run. With the opening of six more NIPERs there would be seven NIPERs in the country. These NIPERs would award Masters & Doctoral Degrees in different streams of pharmaceutical sciences and would give more emphasis on R&D activities of pharmaceutical industry.

NIPERs would be equipped with R&D infrastructure of international standards and having various specializations suited to the needs of the industry. The students would be exposed to cutting edge technology to meet the newer challenges of the industry. The intake of students in various NIPERs would be about 200-250 each and after all the seven NIPERs become functional about 1500 highly skilled trained manpower would be available for pharma industry annually.

In fact, the four new NIPERs at Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Hajipur had already started working with the help of mentor institutes at these places and classes were started from the academic session 2007-08. NIPER, Guwahati and NIPER Rae Bareli have been started through mentor institutes in 2008-09. The students are being selected through common admission test conducted by NIPER, Mohali in association with these new NIPERs.