The Government has decided to support the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) in setting up world class Institutes of Public health in India through contribution of upto Rs. 65 crore as one-time grant to the initial Rs. 200 crore PHFI corpus.
The representatives of the Government are also there in the Governing Board of PHFI. PHFI is an autonomous Public-Private partnership and besides Government of India, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Deshpande Foundation, Amar Foundation and other high net worth corporates/individuals, both from within India and abroad, are contributing to the PHFI corpus fund.PHFI is an initiative to bridge the gap between the requirement and availability of trained personnel in public health and to effectively promote public health management. It will not only train health professionals, but will also assist in strengthening the existing institutions in the public health sector, create a pool of excellent faculty, act as a think tank for the Government providing inputs for policy initiatives and set standards for public health education. The research programmes of PHFI would be geared to facilitate policy and programme development in public health through inter-disciplinary studies.
PHFI has decided to establish Institutes of Public health in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh and Gandhinagar, Gujarat. The institutes will be fully operation by 2009, although short and medium term education and training programmes are expected to start from year 2008 itself.
This information was given by the Minister of State for Health & Family Welfare, Smt. Panabaka Lakshmi in a written reply to a question in the Rajya Sabha.
Source-PIB
SRM/S
