Shillong, Aug 25: Meghalaya Government on Friday approved the setting up of 3 medical colleges in the State, one each at Shillong, Tura and Ri Bhoi District.
The cabinet on Friday finalized the roadmap for the immediate procedure starting of the 3 Medical Colleges in the State. A committee has been constituted and a proposal has been made on how the colleges will be set up and operationalized.
Cabinet today finalized the roadmap for the immediate procedure starting of 3 Medical Colleges in Meghalaya i.e in Shillong, Tura and Ri Bhoi District. A committee has been constituted and a proposal has been made on how the colleges will be set up and operationalized.
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For the Shillong Medical College, the Health Department is exploring to leverage the existing resources like Civil Hospital, Shillong, Ganesh Das Hospital and existing human resources like Specialist Doctors and others who can potentially become faculty members.
Tura Medical College is already in the pipeline and the Health Department will finalize the function of the Medical College including human resource. Government is also exploring a PPP model through tie up with reputed Medical Institutions to operationalize the Medical College.
The third medical college, the P A Sangma International Medical College in Ri Bhoi District, is a private initiative by University of Science and Technology, Meghalaya (USTM). The university has come up with a mutually-beneficial proposal where they are offering free and concessional medical seats to the students of the state and requesting for financial assistance through a repayable loan, to the tune of Rs. 230 crore, which is being considered to go on a Swiss Challenge mode.
Addressing the media after the Cabinet, Health & Family Welfare Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh said, “We will immediately start the process. We may have in the next 2-5 years, at least 140 good seats for the State of Meghalaya. This will increase proportionately every time. We are looking at a target of 240 or maybe 340 seats.”
Adding to the Minister’s statement, Principal Secretary in-charge Health & Family Welfare Sampath Kumar said the medical college is facing challenges related to faculty. “The Cabinet has asked the department to explore how actually that can be run using PPP mode by identifying reputed medical institutions to help in terms of operationalizing the college,” he said.
He further said the proposal has been made for setting up the Shillong medical college within the next 2-3 years, which will start with 50 seats, and over a period of time will be upgraded to 100 seats.
When asked, the Principal Secretary said that Rs 247 crore was sanctioned for construction of the Tura medical college and the Central government is also funding Rs 180 crore for the project.
“Whereas, the Shillong medical college, since we already have existing infrastructure and around 550 beds are there besides having existing faculty that are going to be trained in the next 2-3 years to become the faculty – the projected cost would be around Rs 114 crore,” he added.
Further, the cabinet approved the establishment of the Meghalaya Medical Services Recruitment Board (MMSRB) as a permanent institution entrusted with the responsibility of recruiting Allopathy Doctors, AYUSH physicians, Dental Surgeons and Nurses.
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