K'taka govt, Dutch join hands to launch health care pilot project

Bengaluru: The Karnataka government Friday said it has tied up with The Netherlands to launch three pilot projects in the health care sector.

The projects were in the areas of geriatric, mental health and diabetes-hypertension and would be co-funded by the state and the Dutch governments, Karnataka IT-BT advisor Rajkumar Srivastava said here at the Bengaluru Tech Summit.

Rs 60 lakh would be made available for each of the pilot projects with a matching funding by The Netherlands, he said adding they would be taken up in the first quarter of 2019.

This was part of the letter of intent signed by the government in May this year with The Netherlands Enterprise Agency and the Task Force for applied research to set up a Living Lab here.

The lab was aimed at improving access to affordable health care through means of eHealth and medical devices, Senior Advisor International R&D Cooperation, Life Sciences & Health, Netherlands Enterprise Agency Niels van Leeuwen said.

It would provide a platform for knowledge exchange between students, researchers and regional partners from India and the Netherlands.

The Centre for Human Genetics (CHG), the anchor institute for the Living Lab here, will assist the process, together with Nuffic Netherlands Education Support Office in Bengaluru and the Task Force for Applied Research in the Netherlands.

In the coming months, the state government and The Netherlands will explore opportunities for student exchange under the three-joint projects to begin research work, Srivastava said.

Gert Heijkoop, Consul-General of the kingdom of The Netherlands in Bengaluru, said “we believe (the Living Lab) will result in creating affordable solutions for sustainable healthcare” in both India as well as the Netherlands.