BENGALURU: Seven years ago, the government of India approved a project that aimed at establishing a 160-strong network of Viral Research & Diagnostic Laboratories (VRDLs) for timely identification of viruses — such as Coronavirus (COVID-19) — and other agents causing morbidity and specifically agents causing epidemics and potential agents for bio-terrorism. As on date only 85 labs are functional.These network of labs — 10 regional labs, 30 state-level labs and 120 labs in medical colleges — was to be operational by the end of 2017 as per the initial plans. However, the Department of Health Research ’s (DHR) review of the project shows that lack of funds, among other reasons, saw the project spillover beyond 2017.“Due to non-availability of adequate funds, phasing out expenditure, time taken by concerned institutes in identifying land, creating infrastructure, procedural delays in equipment procurement and recruitment of manpower and linking of pendency of utilisation certificates against other ministry of health and family welfare schemes etc saw the scheme spillover beyond the 12th five year plan,” the DHR document reads.But Nivedita Gupta, technical coordinator, VRDL Network, told STOI: “While the funds is one aspect, there was also the issue of poor response from the states. That has improved now and the rate of MoU signing has also increased. The government has always had this on priority and we’ve never faced any issue with money when in crisis like the Nipah outbreak or in any other situation.”However, by the end of 2016-17, only 64 labs — five regional labs, 14 state-level labs and 45 labs in medical colleges — as against a target of 160 were established. Further, it was decided that the project will now have only 125 labs as opposed to 160 as planned initially.“Considering the trend of availability of funds in the budget, number of VRDLs already established, functionality of VRDLs and extent of responses from states, the target has been reduced to 125 VRDLs,” the DHR said.And, these 125 were to be operational by 2019-20, but with just one month left, the target has still not been met.“Till date 105 VRDLs — nine regional level; 22 state level and 74 medical college level VRDLs — have been provided funds. Out of these 85 VRDLs are functional,” the DHR’s update on the project earlier this month reads..While officials TOI spoke with did not immediately provide a break-up of funds received, the overall programme — with the revised target of 125 labs — was estimated cost Rs 488.4 crore (Rs 311.5 crore non-recurring cost and Rs 176.9 crore recurring cost) as of 2018-19.One official told TOI: “I think DHR may have spent anywhere between Rs 530 crore and Rs 550 crore on the project so far.”Data from just about 1 lakh patients in 2016, the project now has data from as many as 10 lakh people. And as per official data, between January 2014 and mid-2019, more than 8.5 lakh cases were investigated by 65 labs in the network, which collected more than 8.8 lakh samples and conducted nearly 16 lakh tests. Of these, a little more than 2.4 lakh cases tested positive.