The central body for medical science research has commissioned the project at a cost of approximately

Rs 70-80 lakh and the study will start within the next three months.

“A study on this scale to record the incidences of renal failure will be the first-of-its-kind taken up by the ICMR. We will be representing Eastern India. We will be attending a meeting with the ICMR officials in Delhi soon to discuss the details,” said Abhijit Tarafdar, head of department of nephrology, SSKM.

Besides SSKM, the other centres are at Bhopal, Nizam Institute from Hyderabad, All-India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi, and a government hospital in Jaipur.

Changing lifestyle together with an increasing intake of junk food, lack of physical exercise and the pitfalls of a sedentary has led to a 10 per cent increase in the number of renal failure cases in Kolkata. Nephrologists say those suffering from lifestyle diseases like diabetes, obesity and hypertension ultimately fall prey to kidney ailments.

Internal studies show that of those patients who suffer from diabetes at SSKM, 20 to 25 per cent suffer from diabetes nephropathy (diabetes affecting the kidneys) with 10 per cent of them having renal failure.

“The rate of renal failure is on the verge of an