Efforts on to make two medical colleges functional: Minister

Himachal Pradesh government is making efforts to make the medical college in Chamba and Nahan functional this year, subject to permission of Medical Council of India (MCI), state Health and family welfare minister, Kaul Singh informed the House during the Question Hour today.
Replying to a question from Gulab Singh Thakur, Gobind Thakur, B K Chauhan (all BJP) and Maheshwar Singh (HLP), the Health minister said the state government had sought permission from the MCI to start admissionsto first batch of MBBS in two medical colleges in the monthof August this year.
The minister said the Central government had sanctioned Rs 198 crore to each medical college to be set up in Sirmour, Hamirpur and Chamba districts.

"The government has already got Rs 21.53 crore from the Centre to start work on them, " he said.
The state government has decided to name Nahan medical College in the name of first Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Dr Yashwant Singh Parmar and Chamba medical college in the name of first Prime Minister, Jawahar Lal Nehru.
He said the Centre had issued guidelines to develop district level hospitals after expanding them to 10 km from their respective headquarter, adding thatthe state governmenthad already allotted tender to Health Service Construction Company (HSCC) to build up 300 bedded hospitals at Nahan.

Kaul Singh said the government had decided to appoint the staff soon and serving Assistant Professors of IGMC and Tanda have been given the option to join in the new colleges with the incentive to raising the retirement age to 65 years from 62 years.
The minister said that state cabinet decided to develop first AIIMS at Kothipura near Bilaspur as it was sanctioned in the last budget of Central government.
He said that land of Animal husbandry department would be transferred for construction of AIIMS building.