National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, is in the process of being recognized as the institute of national importance after the Rajya Sabha passed the Bill, which is now pending before Lok Sabha.

The NIMHANS Bangalore, Bill, 2010, will help empower the institution to have greater autonomy on selecting the syllabi, conferring degrees and increasing its own manpower without the intervention of the Medical Council of India (MCI). This makes NIMHANS an institution on similar lines of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad was in Bengaluru recently for the inauguration of the new infrastructure facility at the NIMHANS which included the e-hospital services, expanded sewage treatment plant, hostel complex and a dining hall.

The minister said that there was every necessity to set up regional centres of NIMHANS at all states and the Rajya Sabha members were also pressing for the same. However such projects would require substantial time to undertake.

While consideration for the NIMHANS Bill was on, both ruling and opposition party members agreed for it and cautioned the government to ensure that the institute did not fall below the expectations with which it was set up, he said.

Concurring that there was a need to develop institutes like the NIMHANS in other parts of the country, the minister said availability of quality manpower was the main impediment. “There was a serious difficulty for the patients and their relatives to  travel all the way to Bengaluru for treatment and therefore we need to begin with commencing separate departments of psychiatry which could help address the issue at the small healthcare centres,” Azad stated.

In this regard, the minister also assured that the government will take up the onus to set up such departments to provide the medical manpower support. He said that every effort would be made to increase the number of seats in NIMHANS with the need to train the psychiatrists.

According to NIMHANS, currently there are 22 postgraduate students for psychiatry, 21 psychology, 21 students of psychiatric social work, and only 10 students from neurology.

With the growing number of mental disorders in the country, there was a serious shortfall of 7,700 psychiatrists. The reality is that country has only 3,800 psychiatrists as against the requirement of 11,500 psychiatrists. “Under the 12  five-year Plan, the government intended to screen the entire population of the country for non-communicable diseases where mental health was an important component,” the minister added.

According to NIMHANS director Dr P Satish Chandra, clearance of the NIMHANS Bill would be a big fillip to the institute's academic autonomy, besides its formal recognition as the institute of national importance.