Mohali’s NIPER gets new director

Prof Dulal Panda of IIT Bombay has been appointed as the NIPER, Mohali, director for a period of five years

Professor Dulal Panda of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay, will join as the director of National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Mohali.

Prof Dulal Panda, director, NIPER, Mohali.

The chairperson of the NIPER’s apex council has approved his appointment for a period of five years. The post has been lying vacant for a year and a half.

The previous director, Raghuram Rao Akkinepally, was sacked by the President of India on December 3, 2019, for concealing facts while submitting his application for appointment. Akkinepally had been appointed in May 2017, after a gap of nearly seven years.

Declared as an ‘Institute of National Importance’ by the Government of India, NIPER is the first national-level institute in pharmaceutical sciences with a proclaimed objective of becoming a centre of excellence for advanced studies and research in this field. Mohali houses the main campus of the group of seven NIPER institutes across India under the ministry of chemicals and fertilisers.