Ranchi, April 16: Psychiatric counselling in a regional dialect will be broadcast by the All India Radio from Wednesday.

Launching the programme, ?Ujale kee Or?, Governor Syed Sibtey Razi lauded the pioneering effort by the Central Institute of Psychiatry (CIP) and the AIR. The programme, in Nagpuria, will help bring psychiatrists to the doorsteps of rural Jharkhand and will be aired at 6 pm for 15 minutes every Wednesday.

The governor was addressing the fourth annual convention of the Jharkhand state branch of the Indian Psychiatric Society at the CIP. He called upon the people to accept mental illness and treat it like any other disease. The convention started off with the startling revealation that 450 million people in the world are afflicted by mental illness. The World Bank actually estimates mental health related problems to account for 8.1 per cent of the global health problems. Disability due to psychiatric disorders are on the rise and by 2020, depression alone will be the second most prominent ailment following heart diseases.

Dr S. Haque Nizami, director CIP, drew attention to the inadequate number of mental health professionals in the country. India, he said, boasts of only 3,000 psychiatrists, 1,000 clinical psychologists, 800 psychiatric nurses and less than 1,000 psychiatric social workers. The service condition in our mental hospitals being poor, many trained psychiatrists have been migrating abroad for more lucrative assignments.

Ranchi Institute of Neuro Psychiatry and Allied Sciences director P.K. Chakraborty today took over as the president of Jharkhand branch of IMA from Nizami.