The primary mandate of the department is to develop highly trained manpower, curriculum and techniques for undergraduate and postgraduate medical education.  The postgraduate programme was launched in 1962 and over these three decades, department has focused on development of rural mental health services, child and adolescent psychiatry services, psychiatry and neurosciences and care for patients with substance use disorder.  Funded research on epidemiology of substance abuse along with general mental health morbidity has been the main focus.  Psychiatric training outside the system of custodial care (mental hospitals) and in the realm of stimulating general teaching hospital environment has been the unique hub.  The postgraduates are trained through outpatient, inpatient, community based and family centred mental health care against the cultural context.