A Parliamentary panel on Monday asked the Department of Pharmaceuticals (DoP) to explore alternative ways of funding, including contribution from state governments, to set up five new National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPERs) in the country. The Standing Committee on Chemicals and Fertilisers said it is constrained to note that the proposal to set up five new NIPERs in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Maharashtra is still on paper without any concrete action to set them up. The DoP had asked the Expenditure Finance Committee (EFC) to allocate Rs 4,300 crore for existing seven NIPERs and additional five NIPERs for the next five years. However, EFC has earmarked only Rs 1,500 crore for NIPERs with the rider that this allocation should be utilised only for the existing seven NIPERs. In this regard, the DoP now proposed to explore alternative ways of funding these NIPERs, it added.