Karnataka Plans to Establish New GMCs In 11 Districts Under PPP Model
Karnataka- The Karnataka government is planning to set up 11 new medical colleges under the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model in 11 districts of the state which currently do not have government medical colleges.
At present, the state has 22 government medical colleges in 22 districts while 11 other districts have no government medical colleges. To fill this gap, the government has now proposed to open medical colleges in PPP mode in Tumakuru, Davanagere, Chitradurga, Bagalkot, Kolar, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Bengaluru Rural, Vijayapura, Vijayanagara and Ramanagara districts of Karnataka.
Minister for Medical Education Sharan Prakash Patil said, “To improve medical infrastructure, health facilities for the rural people and giving more opportunity in medical education to rural residents, poor and meritorious students, the State government is committed to starting a government medical college in every district. There are no government medical colleges in 11 districts of the state. But the Finance Department has not permitted to start of new medical colleges in these. So, we are planning to start medical colleges under the PPP model in these districts.”, quoted The Hindu
Dr Patil also said “A private organisation has been tasked to study and report on starting medical colleges under the PPP model. A meeting has already taken place in this regard. An appropriate decision will be taken after receiving the complete report. However, 11 colleges cannot be started at once and it will begin with two to three colleges per year”.
As of now, Karnataka has a total of 73 medical colleges, including 22 run by the government and a total of 12,095 seats are available. In 2014-15, the State government announced the setting up of medical colleges in several districts. However, construction of the medical colleges in some districts did not take off owing to financial constraints. Setting up and running a medical college is a huge expense that can go up to ₹600 crore.
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