WB to soon get 5 new medical colleges

SNS | Kolkata | 09 March, 2016: The state will soon have five new medical colleges. This would lead to an increase in 500 MBBS seats with each medical college having an intake capacity of 100 MBBS seats.

The colleges would come up in Rampurhat in Birbhum, Cooch behar, Diamond harbour in South 24-Parganas, Purulia and Raiganj in North Dinajpur. An approval in this regard was given under a Centrally sponsored scheme - Establishment of new medical colleges attached with existing district or referral hospitals.

The Centre has given approval for a total of 58 new medical colleges across the country, of which five are in Bengal. The districts that have been selected for this do not possess any medical college. The responsibility of setting up the colleges has been left to the respective state governments and the fund sharing between the Centre and state government is in the ratio of 60:40. The total cost of establishment of a medical college is Rs.189 crore.

The new medical colleges would be attached to the existing district or referral hospitals with the distance between the district or referral hospital and the medical college being within 10 km. At present, there are nine medical colleges with a total seat capacity of 1,900.