Shillong, Aug 22: Health Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh fears that Meghalaya will lose out around 90 sponsored seats from the Centre if the state has its own medical colleges.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Lyngdoh said, one thing that the State of Meghalaya must understand very clearly is that if you are not ready for a medical college, you should not declare a medical college because 85 to 93 seats that we get regularly for our students as sponsored seats from all the States in supervision of the Union government will stop coming. Therefore, we will only have a medical college if we are ready for it,” she added.
The minister said Nagaland and other states have recently declared their medical colleges but immediately their citizens will not be able to avail the sponsored seats from the Centre. “Immediately for a period of five years you will not have medical students going from government quotas any longer from states where they have recently started this, I believe that we will declare the medical colleges when we are hundred percent sure that they are going to work”, she said.
Hurdles to set up medical colleges
As far as the Tura medical college is concerned, the minister said the budgets are overshooting.
“There has been some confusion, some conflict between the implementation of these infrastructures, contract and the department that has to actually execute these infrastructures building in Garo Hills and so there is a bit of a delay,” she said.
Lyngdoh said the government would require over Rs 136 crore to complete the Tura medical college.
“We are now engaging actively with the chief minister to see what is the alternative to ensure that we have Rs 136 odd crore that is required for completing the Tura medical college,” she said.
Shillong Medical College
The government is looking at another model in Shillong where facilities within the city and its neighbouring areas can be utilised as medical colleges.
“We are looking at Civil hospital, we are looking at the Umsawli facility there, we are looking at Ganesh Das, Reid Chest Hospital – where we already have sufficient infrastructure. Allow us to study this matter properly,” she said
According to the health minister, more time was taken to construct medical colleges in the state.
“There are many challenges and I feel if we are not ready yet, this is what we should do and this is what we should accept and wait for the State to be ready because you have to look at faculty, you have to look requirements of other facilities, you have to look at the logistics, you have to look at travel time for faculty, for students, so many important components are there in this project and we want to tell the people of the State, we will give you a university, we will make sure medical college is an important thing and at the same time it is a commitment that should be workable, we have to ensure that it works”, Ampareen added.
