ICMR unit awaits land allocation

The Enterovirus Research Centre (ERC), a unit of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), which has embarked on an expansion plan for global activities, is waiting for land allotment from Maharashtra government for construction of its building in the metropolis, despite downpayment of nearly Rs 2.5 crore.

The ERC is one of the seven who laboratories, accredited as global specialised laboratory (GSL) for polio and it provides technical support for polio eradication programmes all over south Asia by monitoring domestic wastewater for wild polio virus to understand risk of poliomyelitis in the slums of Mumbai.

"To this day, the state government has neither allocated the land nor returned the money, which we had paid three years back for the land within the Haffkine Institute premises," said, J M Deshpande.

"As a result of state government's attitude ERC has not been able to obtain Rs 13 crore, which the ICMR had allocated for construction of the new building. The amount will lapse soon, as the 10th five year plan period comes to an end," he said adding, "thus the total loss borne by the ERC is Rs 16 crore, apart from likely costs when the actual building construction gets underway."

The polio eradication programme in India is using the information which is supplied by ERC to plan the oral polio vaccines (OPV) campaigns, which makes the centre here very significant, Deshpande said.

Meanwhile, the when contacted Maharashtra minister for medical education Dilip Walse-Patil said "We have already discussed about it" and refused to elaborate further.