Sun Oct 20 15:50:19 UTC 2024: Published – October 20, 2024 09:20 pm IST – BengaluruMinister for Medical Education Sharan Prakash Patil | Photo Credit: File Photo
The State government is planning to establish 11 new medical colleges under Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model in 11 districts that do not have government medical colleges at present.As of now, the State has 22 government medical colleges in 22 districts while 11 others have no government medical colleges. To fill this gap, the government has now proposed to open medical colleges in PPP mode in Tumakuru, Davangere, Chitradurga, Bagalkote, Kolar, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Bengaluru Rural, Vijayapura, Vijayanagara and Ramanagara districts.
Speaking to The Hindu, Minister for Medical Education Sharan Prakash Patil said, “To improve medical infrastructure, health facilities for the rural people and giving more opportunity in medical education to rural residents, poor and meritorious students, the State government is committed to starting a government medical college in every district. There are no government medical colleges in 11 districts of the state. But the Finance Department has not given permission to start new medical colleges in these. So, we are planning to start medical colleges under the PPP model in these districts.”“A private organisation has been tasked to study and report on starting medical colleges under the PPP model. A meeting has already taken place in this regard. An appropriate decision will be taken after receiving the complete report. However, 11 colleges cannot be started at once and it will begin with two to three colleges per year,” Dr. Patil said.
According to the plans under way, as suggested by NITI Aayog, the State government will hand over district hospitals in these districts to private establishments for clinical practice while they in turn invest in new medical colleges, under PPP model, sources said. However, the district hospitals will continue to function under the Department of Health and Family Welfare as earlier. The State government will allot land for the private college.
NITI Aayog had recently suggested that it was impossible for either the State or Union governments to bridge the gap in health and medical education infrastructure, and proposed that the State government give up district hospitals with over 750 beds to private establishments for clinical practice, even as they build medical colleges around the same.As of now, Karnataka has a total of 73 medical colleges, including 22 run by the government and a total of 12,095 seats are available. In 2014-15, the State government announced the setting up of medical colleges in several districts. However, construction of the medical colleges in some districts did not take off owing to financial constraints. Setting up and running a medical college is a huge expense that can go up to ₹600 crore, sources in the government said.
However, the government has already taken steps to shift the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) campus to Ramanagara and has decided to build a medical college on the university campus. The government has also already sanctioned a new government medical college to Kanakapura. Both these colleges of the same district are expected to start from the next academic year. It is still not clear whether these colleges will be started under the PPP model or the government will itself build them.Published – October 20, 2024 09:20 pm IST
Karnataka / Bangalore / universities and colleges / medical colleges / medical education / students / government / hospital and clinic / land resources
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