Homeopathic Research and Charities (HRC), a not-for-profit organization based at Mumbai, has embarked on an imperative plan to establish a world-class teaching and research centre for Homeopathy, the basic purpose of which would be to stimulate change and research in homeopathy for practitioners worldwide.

The centre, which is being designed along the traditional 'Gurukul' system of teaching, is to be built at Lonavala, a hill-station located in the western part of the state of Maharashtra.

According to estimates, the centre, which would take about 3 years to develop, is to be built at a cost of about $ 2 million and spread across 8 acres of land. Apart from being a training and research institute, the centre would also have an in-patient hospital and health centre where several other forms of holistic healing would be used in tandem with homeopathy.

According to Dr Jayesh Shah, trustee and faculty member at Homeopathic Research and Charities (HRC), the centre has been conducting several training courses for modern practitioners and awareness seminars for the lay public for more than a decade now.

But the conditions under which these training courses and seminars are conducted, i.e. lack of proper infrastructure and for economical reasons, do not serve as the right ambience for carrying out intensive sessions during the residential courses.

"The demand for these training programmes have increased to such a level that it has become imperative for us to set up a full-fledged centre where courses could be held for a longer period and more often, in a systematic manner. Also, graduate training in homeopathy by using modern techniques is the need of the hour. Therefore, this makes it more apparent that there is an unfulfilled demand for post-graduate studies in homeopathy. Hence it was decided to have a centre, where it will be possible to stimulate change and research in homeopathy for practitioners worldwide", says Dr Shah.

The facilities that have been proposed at the centre include accommodation for 150 people at a time, two well-equipped auditoriums to seat 500 people, audio-visual equipment with translation facility, consulting rooms, rooms for alternative systems of medicine like yoga, music therapy and meditation; pharmacy, pathology laboratory and library; kitchen ad dining rooms with its premises.

Explaining the logistics that has been planned for the centre, Dr Shah said that an estimated initial cost of 6 crore has been laid out for basic infrastructure alone. The ancillaries and technical equipment will bear an additional cost of around Rs 3 crore. "This is to be met mostly by donations from motivated practitioners, patients and institutions from all over the world," said Dr Shah.

Some of the other salient features of the centre would be the in-patient hospital and health centre where several forms of holistic healing will be used in tandem with homeopathy. There will also be a well-equipped pathology and scanning department, an extensive library and a modern pharmacy.

A homeopathic pharmacy is also planned to procure as well as make recently discovered medicines readily available to patients and homeopaths.

Clinical training under world-renowned homeopaths, live cases, discussion on analysis and remedy selection, follow-up assessment in in-patient department and fully residential cost effective courses throughout the year would be the educational highlights at the centre.