Medical college: HC notice to TN, Centre on PIL for location

The Madras High Court has issued notice to the Centre and the Tamil Nadu government on a PIL seeking to set up a medical college in Mayiladuthurai instead of Nagapattinam.

In his public interest litigation (PIL), former DMK MLA J Jegaveerapandiyan said Mayiladuthurai was an unserved area, hence an ideal location for establishing a medical college.

Moreover, he said people have to travel lesser distance to avail themselves of medical care than they have to if the college was set up in Nagapattinam.

When the petition came up, the Division Bench comprising Justice R Subbiah and Justice Pongiappan directed the registry to tag the present petition along with the similar petition, which was already pending.

The bench then issued notice to the secretary, Department of Health and Family Welfare, government of Tamil Nadu, Nagapattinam Collector and the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, New Delhi.

The matter relates to the recent proposal of the Centre to start 31 new medical colleges in the country out of which totally six colleges were proposed to start in Tamil Nadu.

Out of the six, the state Health and Family Welfare Department and the Collector have proposed to start one medical college at Orathur village in Nagapattinam district, which was being objected to by the petitioner.

The petitioner said the peculiar topographical and geographical layout of Nagapattinam district is that it is divided into two landmasses due to the intrusion of a part of union territory of Pondicherry namely Karaikal.

The taluks of Sirkali, Mayiladuthurai, Tharangambadi and Kuthalam are on the north of Karaikal and the taluks of Nagapattinam, Kilvelurm Thirukuvalai and Vedaranyam Falls on the south of Karaikal.

The petitioner further said there was already a medical college at Thiruvarur which is only 20 km from Nagapattinam and there was also another medical college and an attached hospital at Karaikal which is only 16 km from Nagapattinam.

Therefore, he said, the two hospitals cater to the needs of the public of southern taluks of Nagapattinam, whereas patients from Mayiladuthurai have to travel near about 70 km to Thiruvarur or 90 km to Thanjavur for better treatment and better facilities.

Stating further that the density of population was more in the northern taluks of Nagapattinam compared to the density of population in the southern taluks, he said the northern taluks were the unserved area compared to southern taluks.

The plan of the Centre was to cover unserved areas, so the more logical location would be Mayiladuthurai, the petitioner said while seeking a direction from the court to the state and central governments to reconsider the proposal of locating the medical college in Mayiladuthurai taluk.