The government of Punjab has announced that four new medical colleges will be established in the state. OP Soni, Medical Education and Research Minister said that a budget of Rs 1,500 crore has been allocated for the new medical colleges, which will be situated in Kapurthala, Mohali, Malerkotla and Hoshiarpur.
The minister laid the foundation stone of the medical college at Mohali named Dr BR Ambedkar State Institute of Medical Sciences. The college will become operational before the other three asthere is an existing hospital of 300 beds which only needs to be attached to the medical college at Mohali.
He said that presently there were about 1,400 MBBS seats in medical colleges (both private and government) of Punjab which would witness an augmentation of 500 more with the opening of these 4 medical colleges.
The land has been made available for all the colleges but it is expected tha AIMS Mohali will become operational first, since there is an existing 300-bedded hospital which just needs to be augmented to attach it to the Medical College.
Currently, the medical college at Mohali is hiring support staff and has already recruited 80% of the teaching faculty.
“The NMC inspection has been applied and we are hoping to start the first batch of MBBS this year,” he said. “The Medical College building will house an academic block, four lecture theatres, labs, girls/boys/hostels, faculty residences, library, auditorium as well as ample space for indoor play area/community centre. Besides, a state of art multi-storey building will be built which will have 200-bedded hospital block for orthopaedics, paediatrics, ENT, dermatology, surgery, a dedicated blood bank and seven operation theatres. As per available estimates, about Rs. 325 crore would be spent on infrastructure while Rs. 50 crore would be spent on high-tech equipment. The spade work is over and tenders would be floated for the construction of Medical College and hospital building in a fortnight,” said Soni.
In the meanwhile, consultants have been approved for Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala Medical colleges as well and designs are being reviewed. Once the building designs are finalised, the tenders would be floated for them as well, informed the Minister.
