With a view to further augment the research in the medical sector, the Union health ministry has forwarded a proposal for Rs 5000 crore outlay for the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) during the XIth Five Year Plan period.

The proposal has been submitted in time and was still under the consideration of the Planning Commission, which was yet to finalise the allocations for different departments and research bodies, sources said.

The increased outlay was sought to encourage the medical research activities, which now accounted for just two per cent of the total health expenditure of the government. "Proposals included augmentation of human resources, modernisation of infrastructure, improvement of career prospects for the staff and other related issues,'" Ministry sources said.

With the plans still under the process for a separate department for Health Research with ICMR as its main research arm, the premier body is likely to get an increased allocation this time and functional autonomy too. The total allocation for health research programmes under the ICMR during the Xth Plan came around just Rs 2500 crore.

In addition to the existing programmes in areas like infectious disease, there is also a proposal to chalk out medium (5 year) and long term (10 year) research plans for health research, in view of the emerging health hazards in the country.

The proposals included recruitment of at least 500 scientists during the next five years to undertake new initiatives. It also seeks Rs 300 crore support to modernise the physical plant and infrastructure in the institutions and the headquarters.

"Lack of sufficient budgetary support has been affecting the works of the ICMR efforts to back several critical areas of cutting edge science," an official from the body admitted.

The outlay would cover the activities of all the 26 institutes under the ICMR, their capital investments, funding of ongoing projects, upgrading of infrastructure and funding of new projects. The research areas would cover control and management of communicable diseases, fertility control, maternal and child health, control of nutritional disorders, developing alternative strategies for health care delivery, containment within safety limits of environmental and occupational health problems; research on major non-communicable diseases like cancer, cardiovascular diseases, blindness, diabetes and other metabolic and haematological disorders; mental health research and drug research (including traditional remedies.)