The Union budget for 2026-27 committed the government to a second campus of the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences somewhere in north India, citing the region’s total lack of a national mental health institute. Jaipur has the strongest claim, and the usual arguments made on its behalf are weak.

The National Mental Health Survey put India’s treatment gap for mental disorders at 84.5%. Fewer than one in six people with a diagnosable condition receives care of any kind. For depression and anxiety it runs past 85%. There are 0.75 psychiatrists per 100,000 Indians against a WHO recommendation of at least three. Suicide kills more Indians aged 15-29 than anything else.

The conventional next move is to reach for Rajasthan’s own ratios. For this state, the ratios are the wrong instrument. Their wrongness is part of why the gap has gone unnoticed.

A per-capita ratio counts specialists against population. It says nothing about where they are. It quietly assumes a patient and a hospital in the same state can reach each other. In a compact state that assumption is harmless. Kerala is roughly a ninth of Rajasthan’s area. Establish a few tertiary centres in it and the state is covered.

Rajasthan is the largest state in India by area, with over 80 million people. It is not short of medical colleges. Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikaner, Udaipur, Ajmer and Kota all have neurology and neurosurgery services of some description. Kota runs dedicated epilepsy and movement disorder clinics. On paper the state looks reasonably provided for.

However, the ground reality is different. A neurology outpatient department is one thing, and an interventional stroke service is another. Mechanical thrombectomy, epilepsy surgery, a neuro-intensive care unit, round the clock neuroradiology,........

© hindustantimes