All New NIPERs to offer PhDs From Upcoming Session

New Delhi: Good news for the students pursuing pharmaceutical courses! From the upcoming session 2011, all the six new National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPERs) has decided to offer PhDs. Initially, about 10 doctoral research seats will be on offer in each of the six new institutes. The numbers will increase as the academic capacities of the institutes develop. However, in the long run the promise is to produce about 1000 post-graduates and doctoral graduates annually.

Situated at Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Guwahati, Rae Bareilley and Hajipur, the new NIPERs set up three years ago, have been offering only Masters programmes (60 per institutes). But the steering committee on new NIPERs, under the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, yesterday i.e. on December 26, 2010 has decided to offer doctoral research avenues in these institutes following a mounting demand for cutting-edge technologists from the blooming Pharma and health sector, short of human resources.

Presently, there is only one central government-run NIPER, at Mohali in Punjab, producing 150 PGs in the Pharma sector every year. This is also the only NIPER offering MBA in the sector. But, the new NIPERs are still in a fledgling state, sources said, adding that the ones at Guwahati and Rae Bareilley have only started operating well from the year 2008.

All the new NIPERs are currently functioning under mentoring institutes which are the following - B.V. Patel Pharmaceutical Education and Research Development (PERD) Centre, Ahmedabad, for the Ahmedabad NIPER; Indian Institute Of Chemical Technology, Hyderabad, for Hyderabad NIPER; Indian Institute Of Chemical Biology, for the Kolkata NIPER; Guwahati Medical College for Guwahati NIPER; Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow for the Rae Bareilley NIPER and Rajendra Prasad Medical Research Centre for Hajipur NIPER.

This initiative is considered to be of great importance considering the fact that NIPER Mohali is the only centrally-run NIPER, currently, offering doctoral programmes whereas the industry requirement is huge and unmet. As against the 150 trained Pharma personnel, NIPER Mohali is currently producing.  However, India needs at least 1000 a year.

As per sources, on the demand side, the industry has projected an annul requirement of 1,000 trained Pharma personnel from NIPERs. Currently, only about 5,000 students graduate annually in the pharmaceutical courses from 110 colleges in the country. These students rarely match industry requirements whereas the NIPERs can provide training in 14 disciplines with state-of-the-art infrastructure.India's annual pharmaceutical production is valued at Rs. 55,000 crore and the industry is growing by leaps and bounds.