West Bengal to set up five more medical colleges

TNN | Oct 29, 2016, Kolkata: The state government is set to establish five new medical colleges, fulfilling the MCI criteria of having one institute per five-million population. With each new college proposed to have 100 seats, 3,050 students can study in the total 21 institutes-existing and new-in Bengal. The government also has 450 dental seats.

The announcement on new medical college was made after chief minister Mamata Banerjee's review meeting of the health sector. "To have more doctors, especially at government hospitals, the state will come up with five new medical colleges with a total investment of Rs 10,000 crore. These five new colleges are proposed to be set up at Rampurhat in Birbhum, Cooch Behar, Diamond Harbour in South 24-Parganas, Purulia and Raiganj in North Dinajpur," state principal health secretary R S Shukla told reporters. Officials said the state also planned to have nursing colleges by next year at Ghatal, Barasat, Jangipur, Jhargram, Ulberia, Basirhat and Sagar Dutta Medical College at Rs 150 crore. The new medical colleges will be attached to the district or referral hospitals, with the distance between them being planned to be 10km.

These five new medical colleges will be part of a centrally sponsored scheme under which the Centre and state will share the fund in the 60:40 ratio. These five are among the 58 proposed medical institutes approved by the Centre in March; the districts chosen don't house any medical institute.

At present, Bengal has 16 medical colleges, including 12 government, three private and one central institute. With this additional five medical colleges the number will reach 21 and thus fulfilling the MCI criterion. Apart from the proposed five, the state plans to have nine more medical colleges, taking the tally to 26.

, one of the highest in the country. For a 95 million population, Bengal will have a total 26 colleges.

In a bid to make up for the gap in manpower, the Mamata Banerjee government will soon issue advertisements inviting private practicing doctors to work for a few hours in government facilities on contract. Besides this, the government may also raise retirement age of doctors.