The Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) has reconstituted the Board of Governors for the premier National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Mohali, after it remained without a board for a long time.

The Department has constituted the 20-member Board with Dr V M Katoch, the Secretary of the Department of Health Research, as the chairperson. Director of the NIPER, Joint Secretary in-charge of Pharmaceutical Industry in the DoP, Secretary, Technical Education in the Government of Punjab, Financial Advisor to the DoP, Drug Controller General of India (DCGI), and Member-secretary of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) will be ex-officio members.

President of the Organisation of Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) and President of Indian Drug Manufacturers Association (IDMA) will be the two other ex-officio members, according to a notification by the DoP. Lalit Kumar Jain (Pharmachem, New Delhi) and Ajay Piramal (CEO, Piramal Health Care) will represent the industry as members of the Board.

Experts like Dr Tushar K Chakraborty (director, Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow), Dr R C Deka (director, AIIMS, Delhi), Prof. N Rajendran (director and Professor at Madras Medical College), Prof T Alesan (Associate Professor at Kamraj College, Thoothukudi), Dr Nagarajan Venkataraman (Professor Emeritus in Neurosciences, Tamil Nadu), Prof. Vinod Kumar Dixit (Dept of Pharmaceutical Sciences), Dr Hari Singh Gaur University, Sagar), Dr N J Gaikward (Professor at Dept of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Rashtrasant Tukadoji Maharaj Nagpur University), Prof. D Acharya (director, IIT Kharagpur) and Prof. B Suresh (vice-chancellor, JSS University, Mysore and the president of the Pharmacy Council of India) will be the other members.

“In terms of Section 4(4) of the NIPER Act, 1998, the term of office of chairperson and members of the Board of Governors, other than ex-officio members, shall be three years,” the notification said.