Govt asks PSUs to start medical colleges by 2014

The state government has directed three central government PSUs-Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL), National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and National Aluminium Company (Nalco) to take steps to complete construction of three medical colleges at the earliest and start admission of students from the 2014 academic year.

MCL, a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd (CIL), proposes to set up a medical college at Talcher, NTPC at Sundergarh and Nalco at Koraput.

“The PSUs were told to complete medical college construction as early as possible and start admitting students from the 2014 academic year,” said Damodar Rout, state health and family welfare minister at a review meeting here.

Similar instructions were issued to private organization keen to set up medical colleges in the state. While Nabadiganta Educational Trust proposes to set up medical colleges at Bhubaneswar, Jharsuguda and Baripada, Blue Wheel group has plans to build a medical college at Nayagarh.

Today’s meeting was attended by representatives of seven institutions. Rout said, the state government has formulated a policy to set up more hospital-cum-medical colleges through Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode, which has attracted a lot of private players. As per the policy, the state government is issuing No Objection Certificates to the private players after assessing their strength and capacity and the state health department has been instructed to supervise the progress of these projects.

At present, there are three government medical colleges and four private medical colleges in the state.