Calcutta, Dec. 27: Bengal will host one of the country?s five Institutes of Public Health Administration to be set up by the Centre in collaboration with the private sector.

Ranjit Pandit, who heads global consultant McKinsey in India, discussed the project with chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee today.

?They are setting up five institutes to train health workers in five states and wanted to know if we?re interested. I told him I want the first institute to come up in Bengal. We really need this expertise,? Bhattacharjee said after the meeting.

Hospitals in Bengal now suffer from an acute shortage of quality nurses and health workers.

The institute, Bhattacharjee added, will be managed by a society formed by a collaboration of the Government of India and private partners. The society will pump Rs 100 crore into each of the five centres which will be autonomous and based on the IIT model, officials in the chief minister?s secretariat said. McKinsey is a consultant to the project.

?The idea was floated by the Prime Minister?s Office (PMO). I am told that by January, the constitution and members of the society will be finalised and the institutes will be launched in March,? Bhattacharjee said.

?The institute will come up at Kalyani in all likelihood. It will offer degree and diploma courses,? an official said.

?It is high time we had such institutes for a complete healthcare delivery system. We need trained administrators, managers, nurses and paramedic staff,? said Sajal Dutta, the president of the Association of Hospitals in Eastern India.