New Medical College In NE: Centre To Bear 90% of Total Expenditure,10% By States

STAFF REPORTER

GUWAHATI: The Centre will bear 90 percent of the total expenditure to be required in setting up new medical colleges in the north-eastern States.

The new medical colleges will be set up under a scheme run by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to establish medical colleges attached to district and referral hospitals. The governments in NE States will have to bear only 10 per cent of the total cost.

“In case of other States, the Centre will bear 60 per cent of the total expenditures to open the new medical colleges. The States will have to spend 40 per cent funds from its own to execute the scheme,” a source in the State Health department said. But in case of the north-eastern States, the funding pattern for setting up new medical colleges will be 90:10

Currently, Assam has six medical colleges at Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Silchar, Jorhat, Tezpur and Barpeta. Four more are currently under construction at Dhubri, Lakhimpur, Nagaon and Diphu, which will start functioning from 2020-21. Once the three announced medical colleges become operational, the State will have 13 medical colleges. The State Government has also laid the foundation stones for three more new medical colleges in Nalbari, Kokrajhar and Tinsukia.

“Assam is having the maximum number of medical colleges in Northeast. It is now high time to see opening of such colleges in other parts of the region to produce more doctors,” Dr A. Hussain, a retired faculty of Gauhati Medical College said.

On other hand, MBBS students in the State’s medical colleges have welcomed the Union Health Ministry’s move to do away with NEET-PG. “It is a great relief that instead of sitting for NEET-PG, the final MBBS examination will be enough for admission to MD and MS programmes,” Debojit Sarma, a final-year MBBS student said.

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