The prestigious Indian Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR), a globally-recognised entity in the health sector, plans to set up its fourth campus at Kolkata in the next couple of years to undertake education and research in hospital and health management-related issues in the eastern and north-eastern states of the country.

“We are awaiting clearances from the West Bengal Government to start work on the two-acre area we have acquired along Eastern Bypass near Kolkata," Dr Ashok Agrawal, Founder-Trustee of IIHMR Society, told Business Line here. Initially, IIHMR would invest Rs 10 crore on building infrastructure.

At present, the non-profit, self-financed institute has campuses at Jaipur, Bangalore and New Delhi where it enrolls about 550 students annually.

7 new medical colleges

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, who presented diplomas to students on Saturday, said seven new government medical colleges would soon be opened in the State and some district hospitals upgraded. The state government also plans delivery of healthcare facilities at the people’s doorsteps and would set up a cancer institute at the Rajasthan University of Health Sciences.

The Geneva-based Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN) recently selected IIHMR to implement the food fortification project in Rajasthan, following which the institute signed over 50 MoUs with various organisations to fortify wheat flour, milk and oil to tackle deficiencies of micro-nutrients in millions of malnourished people.

The World Health Organization has designated IIHMR as a collaborating centre for district health systems based on primary health care while the Government of India has identified it as an institute of excellence for training and capacity building. The 30-year-old institute has created a global-footprint and has even worked in war-torn Afghanistan for 10 years, said Dr SD Gupta, President of the institute, that has been recently conferred the status of a specialised research university by the Rajasthan Government. “Our 1,600 alumni now run prominent hospitals and healthcare centres across India.”

It runs a joint programme on public health with the Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University of the USA. In all, the IIHMR University now has collaborations with 17 national and international bodies.

Interestingly, IIHMR has also done work in drinking water and sanitation planning and management by quenching the thirst of more than 360 desert villages in Churu and Hanumangarh districts of Rajasthan under the project “Aapni Yojana”.

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