Guwahati: Following its commitment to bring about paradigm shift in imparting medical education, Assam government enters into a MoU for the infrastructure development of academic block of the second medical college in the city with Bright Star Investments private limited at a function held in Janata Bhawan on Friday. In presence of State chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, the commissioner-secretary to the State government Siddharth Singh and founder of the Mumbai-based company Radhakishnan Damani singed the agreement.
It is for the first time that Assam government has collaborated with the private sector for building infrastructure of a medical college, said Sarma terming the occasion historic. He also added that it’s a matter of pride & joy that responding to the call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the corporate sector for providing more opportunities to Indian students in the field of medical education, Bright Star has chosen Assam as the first State to start the noble collaboration.
Almost six decades ago, the first medical college at Guwahati was established to cater to the needs of local people as well the neighbouring States. Since then, population in the State has grown manifold, so does the number of students aspiring to pursue medical education. Considering the ever-growing demand, the government took several steps for augmenting opportunities for medical education and advanced healthcare facilities by setting up medical colleges at different parts of Assam.
Taking a pragmatic step to address this requirement, the government has taken up the task of establishing the second medical college in the city with the provision of 1000 bedded hospital and academic block with hostels for boys and girls for 100 annual intake MBBS students. Sarma asserted that the government has been working with a vision of one medical college in every district of the State. It has taken steps for setting up 15 new medical colleges in addition to the existing nine institutions. Seven medical colleges are being constructed at Nalbari, Nagaon, Kokrajhar, Tinsukia, Charaideo, Biswanath Chariali and Guwahati.
The government is going to start construction of five more medical colleges at Golaghat, Bongaigaon, Marigaon, Tamulpur and Dhemaji and work for three more medical colleges proposed at Sivasagar, Karimganj and Goalpara will be taken up very soon. With the increase in medical colleges, number of MBBS seats have also increased in Assam from 726 (in 2014) to 1200 (in 2022). Till 2014, total post graduate seats were 395 and now it has increased to 711. Once the construction of proposed medical colleges gets completed, Assam will have 2700 MBBS seats.
