Govt wants private players to set up medical colleges

Facing a shortage of doctors as well as institutes to impart medical education in Uttar Pradesh, the state government is planning to invite private players to establish medical colleges in districts where there are no medical institutes.

UP has a total of nine state government-run or autonomous medical institutes, two central government-funded colleges and 14 private colleges in the state. And apart from four new state government-run medical colleges in the pipeline, there are no medical institutes in three eastern divisions of the state— Devipatan, Basti and Mirzapur division.

The state government is now planning to promote private groups, which are already providing or planning to venture into medical education, to establish medical colleges in these three divisions. A meeting in this regard was held between interested private parties and Director General, Medical Education, last week for initial discussions for the project.

"We first invited suggestions from private players who are interested in establishing medical colleges in three divisions where there are no medical institutes. Further, we are also interested in promoting private players to establish medical colleges in all the districts that do not have colleges," said Saudan Singh, DG ME, Uttar Pradesh.

After the first round of talks, the state government is now waiting for recommendations from interested private parties before formulating a policy for facilitating such private colleges, said Singh.

"In the first meeting, the private players recommended a single window system for the project, facilitation in acquiring duty-free land and time-bound change in land usage for establishing the college, proper supply of electricity to the colleges and other such basic amenities. We are awaiting their final proposals and recommendations. The government will then formulate the policy for supporting such private institutes," said Singh.

In the previous Mayawati regime, the state government had decided to run three medical institutes, including the upcoming medical colleges in Azamgarh, Banda and Paramedical College in Saifai, on public private partnership (PPP) mode. However, the PPP projects were cancelled by the Akhilesh government, and now all three institutes are to be run by the state government.

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