Tamil Nadu gets MCI nod for 6 medical colleges

CHENNAI: Two committees of the Medical Council of India have cleared the decks for six new government medical colleges to be set up in the state, said health minister C Vijaya Baskar. If the Union health ministry gives the final nod and financial sanction, the state will be able to add up to 900 MBBS seats into its matrix.

“We are thrilled.

This is probably the largest number of seats Tamil Nadu has been sanctioned at one go,” Vijaya Baskar said. “We have been working hard to get the seats. On the day of Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit, papers had to be signed by at least five ministers for six government orders to be released in 24 hours. I signed one of the orders in Mamallapuram. We did it and were able to convince the Centre that we were serious about it,” he said.


Now, encouraged by the results, the state has planned to apply for three more medical colleges in Krishnagiri, Nagapattinam and Tiruvallur. “We are in the process of finalising land for these colleges. This should add another 450 MBBS seats and allow us to create tertiary care hospitals in the districts,” he said. The addition of six colleges — in Ramanathapuram, Virudhunagar, the Nilgiris, Dindigul, Tirupur and Namakkal — will take the total number of MBBS seats in government colleges to 4,150. The state will have to recruit at least 600 more doctors, 300 staff nurses, paramedics and administrative staff besides completing construction work. “We may not be able to open all six colleges by 2020, but we will try our best. A lot depends on when we get funds from the Centre,” said a senior official.

In August, the cabinet committee on economic affairs had approved setting up of 75 government medical colleges by 2021-22. The Centre has proposed to partially fund the project as it wanted to increase the number of medical schools. Tamil Nadu, which has 23 medical colleges, proposed medical colleges in the six unserved areas.

The state, which had made a policy decision to open one medical college in every district and increase seats in existing medical colleges, decided to use the opportunity.

In September, Vijaya Baskar presented the proposal to Union health minister Harsh Vardhan and told him the state had made all arrangements, including identification of land, for the six colleges.

The administrative building of Hindustan Photo Films in Ooty, land in the collectorate complex in Virudhunagar and space around the government hospital in Tirupur have been earmarked for the new colleges.