A pilot project with Melbourne University of Australia has begun to help treat mentally-ill poor people.

The project in collaboration among Melbourne University and Ranchi-based Central Institute of Psychiatry (CIP) and Ranchi Institute of Neuro-Psychiatry and Allied sciences (RINPAS) aims to cure mental health services to the poor people living in remote part of the country.

"Gumla, Chandigarh, Thane and a district in Tamil Nadu have been chosen to deliver mental health care under the pilot project," RINPAS director Amol Ranjan Singh said.

He said the salient feature of the project is to pick patients from grassroots and treat them at psychiatric centres.

"The patients will be treated under the care of their family members. After recovery, they would be given occupational therapy like imparting technical skills. It will help them to eke out a living without bothering of the social stigma attached with the disease even after recovery," Singh said.

After taking up mental health projects in Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia, Melbourne University has been working with centre's mental health programme, CIP director S K Nizami said.

"Experts from the Australian university have visited the country twice. CIP has been made the nodal agency of all districts mental health programmes in Eastern Zone," Nizami said.

The pilot project would try to deliver mental health services in the four areas and then launch such projects in all other districts of the country, officials said.

Stating that Gumla is chosen under the "tribal model" and that it is a three to five years project, RINPAS director said village heads would also be involved in the programme.

Observing that Gumla district reports more cases of matricide, fratricide, infanticide and witchcraft victims, Singh said, "A long period of poverty and alcoholism lead to mental illness to a person."