Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Saturday said a new health mission to address specific needs of the urban poor, on the anvil for quite some time now, will be launched in the next Five Year Plan.

To ensure its success, inter–ministerial cooperation would be needed, he said. "For best results, this initiative will demand a high degree of coordination between the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the Ministry of Urban Development and the Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation," he said.

Speaking at a ceremony to lay the foundation stone of the redevelopment project of Lady Hardinge Medical College in its centenary year, Singh also said that the allocation for health sector during the 12th Plan period has been enhanced by three times over the previous Plan to address the complex challenges before it. The outlay for the sector in the 12th Plan period has been fixed at Rs 3 lakh crore, up from Rs 89,265 crore.