Pitroda inaugurates IHST in Bangalore

India's first trans-disciplinary health university 'Institute of Trans-disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology' (IHST) was inaugurated on Sunday by the Chairman of the University and Advisor to Prime Minister Sam Pitroda.

Pitroda, who also heads National Innovation Council, described the new university as an 'IIT for the Indian Health Sciences".

"I believe this is the only university in the country with the focused mandate of bridging the Indian Shastras and Western Sciences. We will develop this university into an IIT class institution for the traditional Health Sciences of India," he told reporters after the inauguration.

He added that the Institute of Trans-disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology University (IHST) is a futuristic idea about the modernisation of the global healthcare in the 21st century by bridging traditional health science and practices of India with western biomedical sciences and technology. He pointed out that the aim of the university is to create a new model for integrative healthcare.

The university will function within the campus of FRLHT (Foundation for Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions) in Yalahanka, Bangalore. The university is being constructed upon the 20 years of work of the FRLHT Trust which was started by Pitroda and his team in 1993. In 2013, the Karnataka government had decided to legislate FRLHT into a State Private University.

Pitroda said the university is visualised as a platform for lowering costs and enhancing access, quality and reach of healthcare to millions; and facilitate the creation of transformative knowledge and original Indian contributions, to the world of medicine and life sciences.

"India can be a world leader in this new field of 'Trans-disciplinary Health Sciences and Technology', because we have over the last century or so assimilated and achieved a reasonable degree of competence in bio-medical and life sciences and we have a medical heritage of our own," he said.