The Centre cleared a proposal for setting up
of National Cancer Institute at the Jhajjar campus of All India Institute of
Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, at a cost of Rs 2035 crore.
The cancer
institute will be located in Badhsa village in Jhajjar of Haryana, near Delhi
and will be completed in a period of 45 months. Approving the Health Ministry's proposal on
Thursday, the Union Cabinet cleared a long-pending demand of Haryana government.
The step is being considered as a
landmark in the area of cancer research in the country and shall lessen the
deficit of tertiary cancer care in the Northern region.
Cancer is emerging as a major public health
concern in India, where 11 lakh new cases are diagnosed every year and the
mortality rate is 5.5 lakh per year. Cancer
treatment facilities in India are lagging behind when compared to WHO standards
that requires a radiotherapy machine per million population. India at present has 0.41 machines per million
populations and the setting up of this institute will herald a new chapter in
the initiative against cancer.
The Institute will have 710 beds for
different facilities like surgical oncology, radiation oncology, medical
oncology, anaesthesia and palliative care and nuclear medicine. It will also have the first of its kind
Tissue Repository in India. HSCC
(India) Ltd, a public sector enterprise under the administrative control of the
Health & Family Welfare Ministry has been appointed as Project Consultant
for it by AIIMS Delhi.
The National Cancer Institute will operate on
the lines of NCI in USA and DKFZ in Germany as a nodal center for indigenous
research, promotive, preventive and curative aspects of care and human resource
development.
The institute aims to plan, conduct and
coordinate research on cancers which are more specific to India; like tobacco
related cancers, cancer of the uterine cervix, gall bladder cancer and liver
cancers. The Health Ministry note said
the focus will be on understanding, analyzing causes and genesis of various
cancers.
The Institute will further translate the
knowledge gained to develop feasible strategies to improve cancer care services
by improvement in detection, diagnosis, treatment and quality of life of
patients. The proposed institute will
broadly have clinical division, research divisions, and disease management
groups (DMGs). These DMGs will go in to the details of all issues pertaining to
management of various cancers, site wise, besides other facilities.