This Institute came into existence on 1st April,1976 when the India Centre of JALMA was officially handed over to the Govt. of India and subsequently to the Indian Council of Medical Research. This was named as Central JALMA Institute for Leprosy in 1976 and has been renamed as "National Jalma Institute of Leprosy and other Mycobacterial Diseases" in 2005 to reflect its broader research areas.

This Institute was originally established as "India Centre of JALMA" in 1966 and was managed by a Tokyo based voluntary organisation -JALMA (Japanese Leprosy Mission for Asia). This Institute is one of the fine examples of international human links and compassion for each other.

The Institute has completed 30 years of its existence under ICMR. The Institute has a major thrust on leprosy (40%), relevant areas of tuberculosis and other mycobacteriosis (40%), HIV (10%) and Filariasis etc (10%). During its existence as a research Institute under ICMR the scientists of the Institute have continued to contributed on almost all aspects of leprosy, several cutting edge areas of tuberculosis ( DNA fingerprinting methods, drug resistance etc), selected areas of HIV-AIDs and has now made forays in to related problems like filariasis.

The Institute has state of the art facilities like BSL-3 labs, DNA chip lab, Proteomics Lab, all well equipped laboratories, modern hospital and well set Field Programmes at Ghatampur as well as Agra. The Institute has established its leadership in all important aspects of leprosy and mycobacterial research. The Institute is participating in and co-coordinating several multi-centric studies on Leprosy and Tuberculosis.