The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare has taken strong exception to the proposed plan to appoint a political head as the president of National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS) which is being planned to be given statutory powers on the lines of AIIMS.

The Parliamentary panel, in its recent report on the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences, Bangalore Bill, 2010 which was introduced in Rajya Sabha in December last, instead wanted an eminent person having full command over the specialised areas of the institute as the president.

“The Committee strongly feels that the appointment of a political head as President of the Institute Body of national importance cannot be considered advisable in any respect. It is a well known fact that the Ministers are entrusted with manifold responsibilities and functions. It becomes very unpractical to expect full attention at all times from Ministers that too in the functioning of premier institutes like NIMHANS and other similar bodies,” it said.

“There shall be a president of the Institute who shall be nominated by the Central Government from among the members other than the director of the Institute. The chief secretary or his nominee (not below the rank of secretary) of the Government of Karnataka should be an ex-officio,” it said.

It was pointed out to the Committee that since this Institute is a unique one specializing in medical/physical, behavioural sciences, it would therefore, be in the interest of the Institute to have eminent scientists from these disciplines and from different universities. The Committee would like to emphasize that over the years the Institute has emerged as a premier tertiary care medical and academic institution dedicated to the care of neurological, neurosurgical and psychiatric disorders and manpower development in super specialty branches. Having the status of Deemed University, it has gained international recognition in patient-care and education. It would, therefore, be in the fitness of things to have very eminent persons/experts in the very specialized medical sciences, the report said.

The bill, still pending, seeks to make the Institute a statutory body corporate and to declare it as an institution of national importance under Entry 64 of List I of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution so that it may develop as a high level institution of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences on the pattern of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, (AIIMS) New Delhi, the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, (PGIMER) Chandigarh and the Jawaharlal Institute of Post-Graduate Education and Research, (JIPMER) Puducherry.

This Bill will empower the Institute with academic autonomy to develop its own curriculum, set new trends in mental health and neuro sciences, award its own degrees and also enable it to have appropriate delegated administrative and financial powers. The conferring of statutory status on this Institute will enable it to grow into a model centre of excellence.