In spite of independent India making giant strides in various spheres, a number of challenges, including provision of universal healthcare and making primary and tertiary healthcare affordable, remains to be addressed, and young researchers can play a decisive role in identifying and providing solutions to them, Director General of Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Balram Bhargava has said.
Prof. Bhargava participated as chief guest at the 9th Convocation of GITAM (Deemed to be University) at Rushikonda here on Saturday.
Speaking on the progress made by India, he said: “I belong to a generation, where we had to miss a meal due to shortage of food grains. On the call of the then Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri ‘Jai jawan, jai kisan’, India had contributed to the improvement of food production. The prospect of importing food grains was overcome with improved production.” The ‘white revolution’ was another area in which India improved its milk production. In the health care sector, our generation has done well. “There was no need for Indians to go abroad for advanced medical treatment and complicated surgeries from 1980 s onwards. People from other countries started coming to India for medical treatment.
“Pharma industry was another major achievement. Indian generic drugs are being exported to various parts of the globe and over 60% of the drugs in the USA are of Indian origin.”
Prof. Bhargava said that the Ayushman Bharat programme of the present government aims at providing universal health coverage and making primary and tertiary healthcare affordable.
Multi-disciplinary research
The ICMR Director General said: “Indians are genetically endowed with a capability to innovate and provide solutions to various problems. Though, we take a lot of time to innovate, when we do, we provide cheaper, better, innovative and scalable solutions to various problems.” Innovations in medical devices would go a long way in providing healthcare to the poor at affordable cost and multi-disciplinary research would go a long way in achieving it, he said.
Earlier, GITAM Chancellor K. Ramakrishna Rao conferred the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science of GITAM, upon Prof. Bhargava.
Vice-Chancellor Prof. M.S. Prasada Rao spoke.
Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters (DLit.) was conferred on Telugu writer Peri Ravi Kumar. Faculty members S.S. Prasada Rao, R. Gyana Prasuna and Y.V.V. Satyanrayana were honoured with the ‘Best Researcher Award’ and Usha Gampala from science field received ‘best Ph.D. thesis’ award. A total 26 graduates received GITAM president’s gold medals for their outstanding performance in academics.
