National Mental Health Programme in India (1982-1989) Mid-point Appraisal

The National Mental Health Programme (NMHP) for India (1982) was formulated by the mental health professionals in 1981 and 1982 and it was adopted in August 1982 by the Central Council of Health and Family Welfare. The NMHP envisaged that there would be periodical review and readjustment depending on the experiences of implementation as follows: "depending upon the difficulties and bottlenecks encountered by the various implementing agencies, corrective measures will be evolved/adopted for the smooth and result oriented functioning of the mental health programme." At this point of time, with 7 years of experience, it is appropriate to consider the progress and plan for the future. There are four questions that can be considered at this point of time. These are: (i) Why a NMHP in 1982? (ii) What is NMHP? (iii) How has NMHP done in the 1982-1989 period? and (iv) the future of NMHP. Recently a comprehensive document has been brought out by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (GOI, 1989) outlining the progress of NMHP.