58 New Medical Colleges to be Set Up in India by 2018: Health Minister

J.P. Nadda, the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare announced 58 new medical colleges will be established across India by 2018. He disclosed that implementation of this project scheme will cost INR 11,000 crore.

He stressed the need for rapid expansion in the field of medical education in the country while he was delivering a video-address at the convocation of Khaja Banda Nawaz Institute of Medical Sciences on Sunday, 30th April.

The decision was made after the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on last Thursday (27th April) cleared the proposal to set up 58 government medical colleges with 100 seats each.

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Mr. Nadda also informed that 5,000 postgraduate medical seats at different hospitals and colleges across the country had been approved by the Union government for the academic session 2017-18, increasing the total number of postgraduate seats to 35,117.

He further added that the process of establishing eleven new All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) colleges in India will become an initial thrust to the tertiary health sector.

Adding to this, he revealed that the super-specialty blocks are to be set up in 70 medical colleges. Also, fifty Tertiary Cancer Care Centres, twenty State Cancer Institutes and two National Cancer Institutes are coming up.

Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, the former Union Minister was the chief guest at the convocation of Khaja Banda Nawaz Institute of Medical Sciences. He awarded the degrees to the 2011 batch students in the presence of Syed Shah Khusro Hussaini, the head of Khaja Banda Nawaz Dargah and president of Khaja Education Society.

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He also highlighted that the students of Hyderabad, Karnataka had to move all the way to Hyderabad and other faraway cities to pursue higher education since the city has remained backward for years in terms of medical education. He ensured to fight to with this with the help of the Article 371(J) of the Constitution.