The Department of Health Research (DHR) has sought an outlay of Rs.15,000 crore during the 12th Five Year Plan period, three times more than that in the current financial year, with a view to giving maximum fillip to the research activities in the health sector.
According to the proposal submitted to the Planning Commission, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has prepared an action plan worth Rs.8,500 crore to be unfolded during the FYP starting from next year.
During the XI Plan, Rs.4496.08 crores outlay was approved for the ICMR. The DHR was created during the middle of the XI Plan and no separate budget was sanctioned for this Department. With an exclusive department in place now, a separate outlay of Rs.6500 crore is sought for activities not related to ICMR.
Under infrastructure development, the DHR is planning to set up 250 multidisciplinary units in medical colleges, 50 Model Rural Healthcare Research Units, specialised centres and units with a total cost of Rs.3000 crore during the plan. An allocation of Rs.1000 crore has been sought for human resources development that will cover 1000 mid career and 2500 young investigators and two-three medical colleges.
Six regional labs, 50 category-1 State-level labs and 200 category-11 district level labs in medical colleges would be set up with a project cost of Rs.900 crore. Grant in Aid scheme for projects requiring inter-sectoral coordination, translation specially in public private partnership mode and IT enabled governance as well as implementation research would require Rs.1500 crore. The governance and departmental expenses are calculated at Rs.100 crore.
Out of the total Rs.8500 crore projected for ICMR, the funding of extramural projects including the ongoing projects would require Rs.2500 crore. Another Rs.2500 crore would be needed for funding intramural programmes, including the ongoing ones, through ICMR institutes and centres, as per the proposal.
New Institutes, centres and upgradation of existing ones will be taken up at Rs.3150 crore. This will also cover aspects like non-communicable diseases, cardiovascular, neurological, mental, ageing , primates and other animal models; health systems research, health economics, policy research on drug resistance, caccine preventable diseases, clinical pharmacology, molecular and transplant immunology .
Rs.300 crore is estimated to be spent on new posts, mostly scientific for creating essential structure in DHR, its outreach units/ labs; ICMR Institutes/ Centres in deficient areas as well as new Institute and Hospital at Bhopal, the proposal said.