ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research)

India’s apex medical research body predates the country’s own independence by 36 years. It started life under British rule, as a fund, not an institute.

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General Science · GenSci0027

ICMR

India’s apex biomedical research body, founded before independence

15 Nov 1911

The Indian Research Fund Association (IRFA) is founded by Sir Harcourt Butler.

1949

IRFA is redesignated the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), with expanded functions.

2020

ICMR-NIV Pune becomes the first Indian institute to isolate SARS-CoV-2.

7 Oct 2022

Dr. Rajiv Bahl is appointed Director-General, ICMR, and Secretary, Department of Health Research.

Permanent research institutes30

Regional Medical Research Centres6

2026-27 budget₹4,200 crore

Older Than the Country It Serves

ICMR traces back to 1911, as a British-era research fund. It was repurposed and expanded after 1947, like several of India’s oldest scientific institutions.

📑 Contents

1Timeline
2Must Know
3Good to Know
4Test Yourself
5Great to Know
6Current Affairs

Timeline

15 November 1911: The Indian Research Fund Association (IRFA) is founded by Sir Harcourt Butler, to sponsor and coordinate medical research.
1949: IRFA is redesignated the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), with a considerably expanded scope.
2020: ICMR-NIV Pune becomes the first Indian institute to isolate SARS-CoV-2, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
7 October 2022: Dr. Rajiv Bahl is appointed Director-General of ICMR, and Secretary of the Department of Health Research.

Must Know

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is India’s apex body for formulating, coordinating, and promoting biomedical research.
It began as the Indian Research Fund Association, founded on 15 November 1911. It was renamed ICMR in 1949, with expanded functions.
ICMR is headquartered in New Delhi. It functions under the Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
ICMR’s governing body is headed by the Union Health Minister, as President.
ICMR runs 30 permanent research institutes and 6 Regional Medical Research Centres across India.

Good to Know

ICMR’s Director-General also serves as Secretary, Department of Health Research, the same person holding both posts. As of 2026, this is Dr. Rajiv Bahl, appointed 7 October 2022.
Key institutes include the National Institute of Virology (Pune), the National Institute of Nutrition (Hyderabad), the National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (Chennai), the National Institute of Malaria Research (Delhi), and the National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health (Mumbai).
ICMR’s research spans communicable diseases, including tuberculosis, leprosy, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. It also covers non-communicable diseases, like cancer and diabetes, along with nutrition research. See GenSci0032 — NCDs in India for the national policy response to this side of ICMR’s work.
ICMR’s budget allocation for 2026-27 stands at ₹4,200 crore.
ICMR’s disease-surveillance institutes work alongside AYUSH-based research on traditional medicine, a separate but complementary research stream. See SciTech0029 — Alternative Systems of Medicine for that comparison.

Test Yourself

Great to Know

ICMR-NIV Pune isolating SARS-CoV-2 in 2020 made India the sixth country worldwide to isolate the virus. It’s a concrete example of the institute network’s practical value, not just administrative coordination.
ICMR’s founding under British colonial rule in 1911, later renamed and expanded after independence, reflects a broader pattern. Many of India’s oldest scientific institutions trace their roots to the colonial period, repurposed afterward to serve a newly independent nation’s priorities.
Pairing the Director-General role with the Secretary, Department of Health Research, links ICMR’s research agenda directly to government health policy. That’s a tighter integration than many countries build between their research bodies and health ministries.
ICMR and the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) occupy different lanes in India’s biomedical research landscape. ICMR runs medical research institutes directly, while DBT backs foundational biotechnology and researcher careers.

Current Affairs

On 7 August 2026, in a Lok Sabha reply, the government detailed steps to cut out-of-pocket health spending. These include free-drugs and free-diagnostics initiatives, plus Janaushadhi and AMRIT pharmacies for low-cost medicines. (Source: BioVoice News)
AB PM-JAY now gives ₹5 lakh annual health cover, to more than 12 crore economically vulnerable families. Ayushman Arogya Mandirs have grown to 1.87 lakh centres nationwide. (Source: BioVoice News)
The same reply detailed medical education growth. India’s medical colleges have risen from 387 before 2014, to 846 today, an increase of 118.6%. (Source: BusinessToday)
MBBS seats grew from 51,348 to 1,39,864, up 172.4%. PG seats reached 86,360, and more than 10,000 further UG and PG seats are planned by 2028-29. (Source: BusinessToday)
On food safety, the government reported 5,20,566 inspections in 2025-26. That’s up sharply from 4,01,391 the year before, and 3,57,072 the year before that. (Source: Tribune India)
Of 2,23,808 food samples analysed in 2025-26, 40,023 failed safety standards. Enforcement led to 31,878 civil penalty cases, and 1,918 criminal convictions. (Source: Tribune India)
On maternal care, the reply cited the Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (JSSK). It has given free care to more than 18.05 crore pregnant women and newborns, since 2014-15. (Source: Observer Voice)
The Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana gives pregnant women a ₹5,000 cash incentive. Per NFHS-6, antenatal care now reaches 95.9% of pregnant women, and institutional deliveries have risen to 90.6%. (Source: Observer Voice)
On 7 August 2026, Parliament received the 175th Report, “A Study of Vector-Borne Diseases in North-East India.” It makes 29 recommendations. (Source: PIB)
These recommendations aim to strengthen disease surveillance, and improve public health infrastructure. They also push a “One Health” approach, to eventually eliminate vector-borne diseases. (Source: PIB)
The Committee flags a vaccine gap. Internationally, vaccines exist for Dengue, Chikungunya, Malaria, and more. In India, only Japanese Encephalitis has a free vaccine, under the Universal Immunization Programme. (Source: PIB)
It recommends India explore mRNA and viral-vector platforms, for faster Dengue and Chikungunya vaccine development. It also wants international collaboration with the WHO. (Source: PIB)
The report names key North-East risk factors. These include hot, humid conditions, multi-insecticide-resistant Anopheles mosquitoes, and cross-border movement, from Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Myanmar. (Source: PIB)
It recommends using drones under the Namo Drone Didi Scheme. These would map larval habitats, in inaccessible border zones. (Source: PIB)
Citing an entomologist shortage, the Committee wants a dedicated North Eastern Regional Entomology Training Hub. It also wants a new, dedicated vector-borne-disease funding window, under the NESIDS infrastructure scheme. (Source: PIB)
6 August 2026: Parliament reviewed India’s push for non-animal research methods.
- ICMR has backed 109 research projects on non-animal testing, across 71 institutes nationwide. These use organ-on-chip devices, 3D tissue models, and computer-based approaches, instead of animal studies.
- Eight CSIR laboratories now report similar capabilities. The Department of Biotechnology also funds this work, through institutions like inStem, Bengaluru, and THSTI, Faridabad.
- inStem develops early embryonic models, to test drug toxicity without animals. THSTI recently built an organoid platform, for liver-disease drug screening.
- For now, these methods complement animal studies, rather than replace them, especially for complex biological research.
(Source: PIB).
On 31 July 2026, Parliament reviewed allied healthcare workforce expansion. (Source: PIB)
Under the NCAHP Act, 2021, 57 allied-health professions are now regulated, with 18 finalised curriculums. (Source: PIB)
Budget 2026 promised 100,000 more allied health professionals over five years, backed by ₹1,000 crore this year. (Source: PIB)
Separately, Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan data showed India’s Maternal Mortality Ratio falling sharply. (Source: PIB)
It dropped from 130 per lakh live births (2014-16), to 87 (2022-24). (Source: PIB)
Since 2016, the scheme has given antenatal care to 7.91 crore pregnant women. (Source: PIB)
On rural healthcare, free drugs are now tiered by facility: 113 medicines at Sub Centres, rising to 381 at District Hospitals. (Source: PIB)
On 28 July 2026, AB PM-JAY reached full pan-India coverage, across all 36 States and UTs. (Source: PIB)
Inter-state portability alone has authorised 29.05 lakh admissions, worth ₹8,383.97 crore. (Source: PIB)
Separately, critical-illness patients can also access the Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi, for up to ₹15 lakh in one-time aid. (Source: PIB)
A smaller Health Minister’s Discretionary Grant offers up to ₹1.25 lakh, for poor patients. (Source: PIB)
On monsoon diseases, India runs 887 Dengue Sentinel Surveillance Hospitals, and 27 Apex Referral Laboratories. (Source: PIB)
A “STOP Diarrhoea” campaign also targets under-five deaths, through a Protect-Prevent-Treat strategy. (Source: PIB)
On 27 July 2026, PIB detailed India’s push to eliminate hepatitis by 2030. (Source: PIB)
The National Viral Hepatitis Control Programme, launched in 2018, offers free screening and treatment. (Source: PIB)
Survey data found seroprevalence of 0.85% for Hepatitis B, and 0.29% for Hepatitis C, nationally. (Source: PIB)
On 24 July 2026, the government reported India’s doctor-population ratio at 1:778. (Source: PIB)
This counts over 22.86 lakh registered practitioners, across allopathic and AYUSH systems combined. (Source: PIB)
Separately, health-research funding has grown over fivefold since 2014-15, to ₹4,821.21 crore. (Source: PIB)
New grant tiers now include NISCHAYAK ANVESHAN, worth up to ₹8 crore each. (Source: PIB)
On child health, RBSK 2.0 now screens for 38 conditions, including diabetes and hypertension. (Source: PIB)
On digital health, the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission has issued over 94.87 crore ABHA IDs. (Source: PIB)
It has also registered 5.36 lakh health facilities, and 10.09 lakh healthcare professionals. (Source: PIB)
NFHS-6 also flagged lifestyle-disease trends: India’s Total Fertility Rate stayed stable at 2, below replacement level. (Source: PIB)
Rotavirus vaccine coverage more than doubled, from 36.4% to 85.4%, between NFHS-5 and NFHS-6. (Source: PIB)
Obesity also rose: 30.7% of women, and 27.3% of men aged 15-49, are now overweight or obese. (Source: PIB)
On 22 July 2026, the ICMR-NIN-led “Let’s Fix Our Food” (LFOF) Consortium released a policy document. It sets out evidence-based recommendations for healthier diets and food environments for children and adolescents. (Source: PIB)
NITI Aayog Member (Health) Dr. M. Srinivas launched the document, at a workshop in New Delhi. LFOF is a multi-institutional platform, with partners including UNICEF India, WHO, FSSAI, and PHFI. (Source: PIB)
The document draws on nearly three years of research and consultations. It covers school food environments, front-of-pack nutrition labelling, and taxation of foods high in fat, salt, and sugar (HFSS). (Source: PIB)
Other recommendations cover marketing regulation for unhealthy food aimed at children, healthier dietary fats, salt reduction, and youth engagement. (Source: PIB)
21 July 2026: ICMR, under its “Medical Innovations Patent Mitra” initiative, licensed three indigenous biomedical technologies to Indian manufacturers. SHetA2, an anti-HPV therapeutic for precancerous cervical cells, went to Emcure Pharmaceuticals. (Source: PIB)
Two next-generation enteric vaccine candidates, developed at ICMR-NIRBI Kolkata, went to Biological E Ltd. One targets typhoid; the other targets Salmonella and Shigella infections together. (Source: PIB)
In Parliamentary replies the same day, the government detailed ICMR’s Viral Research and Diagnostic Laboratories (VRDL) network. It has expanded to 163 labs nationally: 11 Regional, 27 State, and 125 Medical College VRDLs. (Source: PIB)
Four Regional Next-Generation Sequencing Hubs now support genomic pathogen surveillance. National Full Immunization Coverage stayed above 90% for four straight years, reaching 97.9% in 2025-26. (Source: PIB)
A nationwide HPV vaccination campaign, launched 28 February 2026 for about 1.2 crore girls aged 14, had reached 52,10,302 girls as of 15 July 2026. Coverage is tracked through the U-WIN digital platform. (Source: PIB)
Under the National Programme for NCDs, India has set up 770 District NCD Clinics, 524 Day Care Cancer Centres, and 6,410 Community Health Centre NCD clinics. AB-PMJAY now covers 1,961 cashless procedures across 27 specialties, including oncology. (Source: PIB)
Tata Memorial Centre has opened six regional cancer hospitals: at Varanasi, Visakhapatnam, New Chandigarh, Guwahati, Sangrur, and Muzaffarpur. Cancer care has also been extended to all 22 new AIIMS. (Source: PIB)
Comprehensive primary healthcare now runs through 1.86 lakh Ayushman Arogya Mandirs (AAMs). AB PM-JAY has also expanded to cover 6 crore senior citizens aged 70 and above, across 4.5 crore families, regardless of income. (Source: PIB)
On 16-17 July 2026, the Health Ministry held a two-day National Review Meeting on Disease Surveillance, in New Delhi. This ministry-level meeting is distinct from ICMR itself, though it covered surveillance work that ICMR and NCDC both support. (Source: PIB)
All 36 States and UTs adopted a new Key Performance Indicator (KPI) framework. Centre and States agreed to hold monthly performance reviews against it. (Source: PIB)
Topics reviewed included the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP), pandemic preparedness, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and the National One Health Programme for zoonotic diseases. (Source: PIB)
On 16 July 2026, ICMR’s i-DRONE initiative showed that drone-transported TB samples cut both diagnosis time and patient costs, in rural Telangana. (Source: PIB)
In a Yadadri-Bhuvanagiri district study of 840 patients, median diagnosis time fell from 15 days to 5 days. Mean out-of-pocket costs fell from about ₹9,451 to around ₹91. (Source: PIB)
Drones carried sputum samples from local health centres to TB labs. The network linked 11 Primary Health Centres, 60 sub-centres, and 4 TB Units. (Source: PIB)
10 July 2026: The foundation stone ceremony for ICMR’s planned Keylong centre stands deferred. Heavy rain in Himachal Pradesh forced Health Minister JP Nadda to postpone his visit. (Source: PIB)
The new centre, at Keylong in Lahaul and Spiti, will focus on high-altitude medicine and public health research. It upgrades ICMR’s existing field station there, into a full multidisciplinary hub. A new ceremony date has not yet been announced. (Source: PIB)
On 1-2 July 2026, ICMR won Gold at the National Awards for e-Governance 2026, at the 29th National Conference on e-Governance in Jaipur.
The award went to ICMR-MINDS, an implementation-research platform integrating mental and substance-use disorder screening with routine non-communicable disease care.
ICMR won under Category 2, for Innovation by Use of AI and Other New Age Technologies for Citizen-Centric Services. Union Minister of State Jitendra Singh presented the award. (Source: PIB)
On 4 August 2026, the government detailed rising health-research funding, in a Rajya Sabha reply. ICMR’s budget grew from ₹2,732.13 crore in 2024-25, to ₹4,000 crore in 2026-27. (Source: PIB)
New grant tiers now support different research stages. These range from ANVESHAN Grants, up to ₹2 crore, to Centres for Advanced Research, up to ₹15 crore. ANRF, ICMR, and the Gates Foundation also launched MAHA-MedTech, to boost indigenous medical-technology innovation. (Source: PIB)
Separately, a ₹10,000 crore Biopharma SHAKTI scheme aims to build a globally competitive domestic biologics and biosimilars sector, over five years. (Source: PIB)
On strengthening 24×7 emergency services, the government cited its IPHS Digital Toolkit. As of 26 June 2026, it had assessed 100% of public healthcare facilities; 64% scored above 50%. (Source: PIB)
Free diagnostics are now tiered by facility level: 14 tests at Sub Centres, rising to 134 tests at District Hospitals. This aims to cut patients’ out-of-pocket diagnostic costs. (Source: PIB)
On NFHS-6, the government explained its Fact Sheet methodology. A Technical Advisory Committee finalised indicators, in line with government data-harmonisation goals. Anaemia figures, though, will instead come from a separate ICMR gold-standard survey. (Source: PIB)
On 29 June 2026, the government held the 16th Conference of the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare (CCHFW), at Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. Health Minister J.P. Nadda chaired it, and launched four major initiatives. (Source: PIB)
He launched the SUMAN Roadmap 2030, a strategy to strengthen maternal and newborn healthcare. It targets 130 high-focus districts, across 13 states, aiming to cut India’s Maternal Mortality Ratio below 70 per 100,000 live births, by 2030. (Source: PIB)
He also launched the Samagra Shishu Bal Swasthya Karyakram (SSBSK). This unified programme provides home-based care for every child, from birth to 36 months, merging two earlier schemes into one framework. (Source: PIB)
A third launch, the Operational Guidelines on National Ambulance Services (NAS) 2026, sets the country’s first uniform standards for ambulances. All vehicles must now meet AIS-125 safety standards. (Source: PIB)
The fourth launch, Anemia Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan, marks 8 years of the anaemia programme. It expands an earlier “6x6x6” framework to “7x7x7,” adding low-birth-weight babies as a new beneficiary group. (Source: PIB)
It also shifts from a 3-step “Test, Treat, Talk” approach, to a 4-step “Test, Treat, Talk, Track” one, backed by a new digital tracking portal. (Source: PIB)
Nadda also cited India’s wider health progress. Maternal Mortality fell from 130 per lakh live births in 2014, to 87 today — an 86% decline, against a 48% global average. (Source: PIB)
On disease control, India’s TB incidence fell 21% (versus a 12% global decline), and malaria cases fell 81%. The number of leprosy-eliminated districts grew from 542 to 654. (Source: PIB)
Since 28 February 2026, over 50 lakh adolescent girls have received HPV vaccine doses, under the nationwide vaccination drive. (Source: PIB)
The 16th CCHFW conference’s thematic sessions covered three areas. These were NHM-SDG Goals and Priorities, Food and Drug Reforms, and Allied Health Services. (Source: PIB)
The Central Council of Health and Family Welfare (CCHFW) is itself constituted under Article 263 of the Constitution. (Source: PIB)
It serves as the Health Ministry’s apex advisory body, on medical and public health policy. (Source: PIB)