Meghalaya drops plan to run Tura medical college on PPP model

Shillong: The Meghalaya government has decided to drop its earlier plan to run Tura Medical College under a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model and will now operate it as a fully government-run medical college, Health Minister Wailadmiki Shylla said.

The PPP proposal was initially considered due to a shortage of medical professionals but faced strong opposition from political parties and pressure groups, who feared higher treatment costs for patients and increased fees for local students.

While confirming the shift to a government model, the minister acknowledged that recruiting adequate teaching faculty remains a major challenge. He added that the faculty recruitment process has begun and infrastructure development for the college is nearing completion.

According to a recent report by UNI, the Meghalaya Health and Family Welfare Minister, Wailadmiki Shylla stated that that government has set aside its plan to run Tura Medical College on a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

Initially, the state government wanted to operate Tura Medical College on a PPP mode based on constraints with regard to non-availability of professionals.

Also Read:PPP Model for Tura Medical College Opposed by Medical Students

However, opposition parties including the Trinamool Congress and pressure groups feared that this would lead to higher costs for patients of Garo Hills and higher fees for local students, partly defeating the purpose of a public medical college.

“We have decided that the Tura medical college will be a government medical college. We have dropped the idea of running it in a PPP mode,” Shylla said.

Acknowledging the challenges in recruiting faculty members, citing the shortage of doctors willing to teach, the minister said, “The challenge is with the faculties, the doctors who are going to teach the students at Tura Medical College. That will be a big challenge. No doubt from our end we are pushing for it, but it ultimately depends on the number of faculty we will be getting.”

Shylla said that the recruitment process for faculty members has already begun, and infrastructure development is nearing completion.

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