UP cabinet nod to 14 medical colleges

LUCKNOW: The state cabinet on Friday approved the proposal for setting up of 14 new medical colleges in Uttar Pradesh.

“Having 60 medical colleges in the state is a major achievement. It would strengthen medical education and provide manpower to hospitals, medical research institutes and other centres,” state medical education minister Suresh Khanna told TOI.

Once functional, at least 45 districts in the state will have a government medical college. For the remaining, the state government is working out a public-private partnership model.

“Under the Yogi Adityanath government, seven medical colleges have been completed while construction for eight others is on. The cabinet approved 14 new medical colleges today. Besides, Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical University has also been set up which would start giving affiliations to medical colleges soon,” he said.

Khanna said every divisional headquarters would have a medical college soon and the government was planning to have one college in every district. “In the last four years, medical education has made huge strides with establishment of new laboraties and medical colleges,” he said.

“There was a time when students used to go to South Indian states and pay huge donations for medical education but the trend has reversed. The brain drain and flight of capital has stopped. With robust medical education, research and analysis infrastructure, the state excelled in checking coronavirus pandemic,” he said.

Officials said the colleges would be attached with existing district/referral hospitals (phase-3).

As many as 28 colleges are proposed under the scheme of which 14 were approved in the first and second phases. The only proposal left for approval relates to Amethi.

An official spokesperson said the state cabinet approved project cost and other requirements for establishment of the medical colleges.

Details of the cost were worked out by the state public works department officials who reportedly made presentations during the meeting.