… the government has decided to allow private funding in setting up some of the proposed 14 national universities, which would be of world class standards.
During his interaction with British Trade and Investment Minister Mervyn Davies, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal today said the government was in favour of setting up some of the 14 universities in Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) mode.
As per the government’s plan these universities would be "global centres of innovation". The HRD Ministry has already prepared a concept note on institutions proposed to be set up in the 11th Plan.
"Sibal told Davies that the government would seek PPP model for creation of some of these institutions. A few other may be set up under complete government funding," a ministry official said.
The duration of the 11th plan is from 2007-2012. We are now in 2009 and very soon 2012 will be looming. My guess is that the planning commission may already be in its preparatory stage to start planning for 2012. Considering that one of the big focus of this government is to increase the GER (gross enrollment ratio) in higher education from 12.4% to 30% by 2020, the 12th plan will also pay significant attention to higher education. The national knowlede commission has also recommended that India have up to 50 national universities and 1500 universities. With that in mind, following is part of something that I wrote to Prof. Yash Pal (and copied to to Sam Pitroda) in June as a response to Prof. Yash Pal’s draft. (Prof Yash Pal replied back saying: "I thank you for your excellent and concerned suggestions. I have shared them with some of my colleagues. I am sure they would be taken up by some of them. Our report will be submitted in a week. Then will start another phase. Many of these will keep reverberating. Thank you again.")
ii) Regional Universities with 50-50 split between state and the center:
The Central government now has central universities and is proposing 14 national universities. In these universities the students are and will be from across the country and the universities will be funded 100% by the central government, except land being given by the state.
As you have noted some of the centrally managed universities and institutes (IITs, etc.) have a good structure and are doing the best.
As a way to transfer this first-hand to the states I propose the establishment of “Regional Universities” which are funded 50-50 by the state and the center and the students are 50-50 between the state and the rest of the country. This will be similar to the structure of the erstwhile “Regional Engineering Colleges (RECs)”, which have now been transformed to NITs. The original RECs were funded 50-50 by the state and center and had 50-50 students from the state and the rest of the country. The NITs are funded 100% by the center.
Eventually the regional universities may be funded 100% by the center. This idea has many benefits:
(a)The direct collaboration between a state and the center helps in the transfer of know-how of how to develop and manage a good university.
(b)It costs less for the center to create another 30-40 good universities, as the cost is shared 50-50.
(c) It helps develop additional knowledge centers in the states. (Most RECs were established in second rung cities in their respective states. REC/NIT in Orissa is in Rourkela, in Tamil Nadu it is in Trichy, in Maharashtra it is in Nagpur, in Karnataka it is in Surathkal, in West Bengal it is in Durgapur, etc.)
I think this is something feasible and should be pushed with the planning commission. Even with the new central universities and national universities many states have large metropolitan areas that did not get one and are in need of a good (at least partially) centrally funded institution and university. That gap can be filled with the above proposed regional universities. In Orissa possible location of such a regional university could be Rourkela or Jharsuguda.
The proposed national universities also had stringent criteria attached to them, which made it difficult to distribute them. For example, the PIB announcing them said:
As regards 14 Central Universities aiming at world class standards, it has been considered necessary that these are located in or near selected large cities which would automatically have the kind of connectivity and infrastructure which such universities would need.
Like the erstwhile RECs, the proposed regional universities need not have such stringent conditions allowing them to be located in places like Durgapur, Kadapa, Rourkela, Jharsuguda, etc.
Another item that I had in my mail to Prof. Yash Pal, which should be pushed for the 12th plan is as follows:
(vi) University and local communities; National and regional libraries:
I think a good library should be an integral component of each of the universities. Currently the libraries in most universities and colleges in India are pathetic. While the libraries are improved it should also mandate that a big part of the library materials, should be available for browsing for common folks who are not necessarily enrolled in the university. In the US any one can walk into a university library, be it Berkeley (a state university) or Stanford (a private university). I am not sure if that is the case with respect to the universities and colleges in India.
While we are discussing libraries, like central universities and national universities, the Indian government should establish a national library in each state capital (100% funded by the central govt.), and a regional library (funded 50-50 by the state and the central govt.) in another city of a state. In 5-10 years there should be good libraries in each district and in 10-15 years in each block. (When I walk into the local library in the US, I envy not growing up in the US and recall having to beg my local book store in a cabin near my house in Bhubaneswar to lend me translations of the world literature book series. I could not afford to buy them. Nor did my school have them.)
A new item that I have mentioned once in a while and that can be genarlized for the 12th plan is to establish centrally funded rural technological institutes like SLIET (Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology) in Punjab and the recently proposed ABA Ghani Khan Choudhary Institute of Engineering and Technology in West Bengal, in each of the other major states of the country. In Orissa, Balangir and Kalahandi (Bhawanipatna) are good possible locations for this. (Orissa should aim for having a centrally funded institute in each of the undivided KBK+Kandhamal districts.) Although centrally funded, these institutes are different from the NITs. The PIB release in the context of ABA GKC IET says the following:
The Institution will offer courses in Engineering and Technology to cater to the various manpower requirements of the region, with special emphasis on courses relevant to the local population such as in food technology & sericulture.
Initially, the Institution would start with Certificate level courses leading to Diploma, Degree and Post-graduate levels later.
The total project outlay of the Institute will be around Rs. 97 crores.
Dear Readers: Please suggest your thoughts and ideas on the 12th plan. Even if your main interest is about your home town, think of a way to put it in national terms.
September 12-13, 2009: My friend Purna Mishra has written another nice email to the CM and MP Mr. Khuntia. Following is his letter.
Dear Esteemed Chief Minister Mr. Patnaik and Member of Parliament Mr. Khuntia,
From what I hear you both have been working at the opportunity to bring the ESI Medical College to Rourkela and get it funded at the earliest. I thank you for your vision and desire to make Orissa one of the leading states.
Even states with fewer employees in their ESI pool have already started the construction project (e.g., Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, etc.). Since the employees pay for their medical care, ESI is going to establish a medical college in Orissa as this is the ESI mandate.
In my last email, I mentioned a few benefits it would bring if this medical college is established in Rourkela. I found a much bigger benefit to Orissa if this medical college is established in Rourkela. The Phase-I construction cost alone is close to 500 crores. These are the cost of tenders over the last couple of years for the following ESI medical colleges:
1. Patna: 520 Crores
2. New Delhi: 617.87 Crores
3. Bangalore: 490 Crores
4. Dental Medical College, Mumbai: 158 Crores
The tenders for Kerala, Rajasthan, and Himachal Pradesh will be at least 450 crores each.
In this down economy where the central and state governments are giving incentives for private and public investments in local economy, let us see how an cash investment of 500+ crores in construction alone over a 2 year period will jump start the economy of north western Orissa. As most of the economists agree, the investment in construction sector brings the most help for local economy. Last time Rourkela received a serious investment was during the modernization drive where a capitalization of 5000 crores for expansion was made. But most of this investment were spent in acquiring
machineries and did not bring any direct investment to support the local economy. Even the second modernization scheme announced in 2005 for RSP was only 350 crores and again most of that investment was made to acquire
machineries. This will be for the first time in several decades that Rourkela and the north western Orissa would be receiving a investment of 500+ crores in local economy. Please do your best to bring this jumbo sized investment at your earliest. In this down economy this jumbo investment will jump start the local economic growth engine.
We need to build another city in Orissa that could complement Bhubaneswar as we make Orissa one of the leading states in India. The only other city that has this potential at this time is Rourkela.
The people of Orissa who will immensely benefit and will be eternally thankful for you standing up to the ESI babus and do what is right for Orissa.
With my best regards,
— Purna
September 11, 2009: Today’s Pioneer has a long article on this. (Thanks to Prashant Sahoo for the pointer.) Looks like a lot of organizations in Rourkela are now involved. But we should not rest easy until the demand is met. Following is an excerpt from that article.
It is learnt from sources that people from different walks of life have been sending e-mails to the Orissa Chief Minister requesting him to consider the relocation of the proposed ESIC Medical College. In the latest development, many Non-Resident Oriyas (NROs) are not only writing e-mails to the CM but also they are in regular touch with various civil society organisations of Rourkela to strengthen the drive into a people’s movement.
Many retired and working professors of NIT and other leading educational institutions of Rourkela like Prof Somanath Mishra, Prof SK Patel, Prof KC Patra, Prof DM Praharaj, Prof P Panda, Prof P Mallick and many others have come out openly to write letters to the CM along with pursuing others to join the movement. Even they have urged the people’s representatives of the district to take up the matter with the CM. Similarly, many civil society organisations like Disha, Envicare, Visstar, Ores, Cause, Sahayata, Basti Unnayan Samiti and many other groups have joined this drive.
Unlike others, many journalists like Pratap Padhee, Subrat Choudhury, Aurobinda Das, Sanjib Nayak, Mahendra Mishra, AP Biswal, KP Mohapatra and writers and columnists like Narayan Prasad Dash, Bhupen Mohapatra, Debendra Mohanty, KC Badjena, Bishnupriya Mohapatra and Arta Trana Mohapatra have also joined the drive. Similarly, many trade unions like RMS, SETU, RSS, SEAR, KISS, ILU, RWU, SMS and students’ organisations like SFI, AISF, ABVP, DSO and NSUI have also started campaign on their respective level. Even many student leaders have started signature campaign in their respective campuses.
September 10, 2009:
Dear all:
Following is an update on the efforts towards bringing ESIC Medical College to Rourkela.
Lots of emails have been sent to the CM’s office.
Among the media, Tathya.in and Pioneer have covered it.
The email campaign is active in several groups. (myodisa, ornet, agamiorissa, nis-iiser etc.)
MP Ram Khuntia has been contacted by phone and email.
To avoid this topic to get buried under other newer topics in Orissalinks, I have put it in the scrolling bar as well as put it prominently in red in the right hand side bar towards the top. Clicking any of those links will bring it to this article and people can comment on it. Instead of creating new posts I will just update this post.
Members of Myodisa are in the process of sending a memorandum to the CM.
Orissa Society of the Americas is also in the process of sending a memorandum to the CM.
Next Steps:
Continue emails, faxes, letters.
Get more and more people to join the movement and join the Rourkela Forum yahoo group.
Update: He has now joined as the VC. He will be felicitated by the alumni association in Bhubaneswar on 19th Sept 2009 at 6:30 PM in the Institue of Engineers building.
Governor and Chancellor of Universities Murlidhar Chandrakant Bhandare today appointed Prof Deba Kumar Tripathy as the new Vice-Chancellor of the Veer Surendra Sai University of Technology (VSSUT), Burla.
Prof Tripathy is currently Professor of Rubber Technology Department in Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur. The post was lying vacant as previously appointed Vice-Chancellor Ganapati Panda did not join.
He is considered an expert in metal and rubber forming, die mould, tool design for metal and elastomer, rubber product manufacturing, rubber processing, rubber blends and composites, vibration isolation, cellular rubber and plastic and environment engineering.
Four more Indian Institutes of Mass Communication (IIMC) will soon be set up in different parts of the country to meet growing demand for media professionals, taking the number of IIMCs to six.
The new IIMCs will come up in Jammu and Kashmir and Mizoram, besides in the southern and western regions, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ambika Soni today said.
… She said the ministry will firm up proposals for setting up of IIMCs and the work will start soon.
Currently, there are two IIMCs in Delhi and Dhenkanal (Orissa).
Soni also said that her ministry is working out the modalities of upgrading IIMC as a world class university to provide undergraduate courses, offer MPhil and PhD degrees and serve as a think tank for media.
Currently IIMC (both Delhi and Dhenkanal campus included) has a total full-time faculty of 14, with only one mentioned in the context of Dhenkanal. I hope by upgrading IIMC both Delhi and Dhenkanal, especially Dhenkanal will have more faculty. The Orissa government should be proactive on this and try to find out if more land is needed at IIMC Dhenkanal.
Many misguided activists of Orissa and India have tooth and nail opposed any and all operations of Vedanta in Orissa. Their vendetta against Vedanta is so much that they even oppose Vedanta University, regardless of its benefit to people of Orissa.
At a drop of a hat they will mention that Vedanta is blacklisted by the Norway government pension fund; also referred to as the oil fund. But what the activists fail to mention is that the Norway government pension fund also blacklists Boeing, Wal-mart, General Dynamics, Honeywell, etc. All of these are well respected multi-nationals. See the whole list at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway#Excluded_companies.
Many activists also often question the credibility of Vedanta and its subsidiary Sterlite. For them here is a quote from an Arizona newspaper.
Arizona joined several other states in supporting an Indian company’s bid for Tucson-based copper producer Asarco LLC, during closing arguments of a bankruptcy hearing in Texas Tuesday.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Richard S. Schmidt heard the final oral arguments about who should get the local copper producer: Sterlite Industries, the Indian company that has been actively working with Asarco management and workers …
The U.S. government supported Sterlite’s bid, as did the states of Washington, Montana, Texas and Arizona, among others. The United Steelworkers, which represents many of Asarco’s workers, also has supported Sterlite’s bid and threatened to strike if Grupo Mexico gets the company back.
… Grupo Mexico and Sterlite have each offered to fully repay all of Asarco’s creditors, who claim to be owed $3.62 billion. A majority of those creditors, which include several state and federal environmental agencies, say they would prefer Sterlite, according to court records.
Unfortunately, the judge did not recommend Sterlite and it goes to the District Court of Texas for a decision in 4-6 weeks. The main reason behind the judge’s recommendation was that Sterlite was offering less upfront cash. However the fact to note is that Sterlite was backed by the US government and various states as well as the workers of the company and state and federal environment agencies. In fact the workers union support it so much that they are threatening to go on strike if the judge does not favor Sterlite. See http://www.vccircle.com/500/news/sterlite-suffers-setback-on-asarco-bid-but-has-workers-support for more details.
Yet the activists in Orissa and India are misleading the common people there with all kinds of propaganda against Vedanta and Sterlite. So much so that their plans in Lanjigarh, Jharsuguda and Puri have all been delayed. I hope the people of Orissa see and understand what the US and the states of Washinton, Montana, Texas and Arizona are seeing and support Vedanta University. I also hope that they negotate with Sterlite/Vedanta in Lanjigarh and Jharsuguda so that the company establishes branches of Vedanta University and its medical college in or near Lanjigarh as well as Jharsuguda.
Moreover, I hope the people of Lanjigarh learn about this and directly negotiate with Sterlite regarding their concerns and work with them, as the workers of ASARCO in Arizona are doing, rather than getting swayed by the propaganda of the activists who are blinded by their (perceived) supreme court loss and care less about the people and more about their vendetta against Vedanta.
If and when IIT Bhubaneswar wants, it can have its own programs in Design. One of the best design programs in India is at the IIT Bombay Industrial Design Center. IIT Guwahati’s Department of Design also has a good program in design. So there is no need for Bhubaneswar to have an NID.
However, my guess is that there is a tough debate going on in the central government about the NID location in the east. So far among the new 4 NIDs only one location is announced. That is Bhopal. My guess is that among the other three, one will be in the southern states, one in the northern states and one in the eastern states.
I think for Orissa to get an NID it will help if a proper plan in terms of what the focus of this NID will be and why it is appropriate to be in Orissa is presented. People campaigning for an NID in their area of Orissa should prepare a document to that effect. Such a document will help the Orissa CM to make the case better.
Mostly I have seen campaigns for the NID to be in Berhampur. Some people have quipped, why not Sambalpur. I think both groups should focus on making the case in terms of what the focus of an NID in that area should be and tie it in to some special attributes of that area.
Note that a big part of the history behind getting NID to Orissa can be found through this site. The earliest articles that I could locate were about June 25, 2007. There were two conflicting reports on that day.
Business Standard, June 25, 2007 reporting that the then MOS Chandrasekhar Sahu saying that he had discussed with Union minister of commerce Mr. Kamal Nath regarding an NID in Berhampur and Mr. Kamal Nath having agreed to that.
So in my opinion, the proper argument for having NID at some place other than Bhubaneswar is to focus on why that place is appropriate for an NID and then point out that good design programs can be at IIT Bhubaneswar and thus NID need not be at Bhubaneswar.
Dear Esteemed Chief Minister Mr. Patnaik and Member of Parliament Mr. Khuntia,
I am writing this note to plead before you the need to have the ESI medical college in Rourkela. ESI administration has made an easy decision and you both know from your long public career that easy decisions are not always the best decisions. If we look at the existing ESI medical colleges there are many which are not locate in the state capital. The decision in the last 2-3 years to have the ESI medical College in Himachal Pradesh to be located in Mandi (150 km from Shimla) could be a basis for arguing why this ESI medical college for Orissa could not be located in Rourklela?
Here are the reasons I believe why thi ESI medical should be located in Rourkela instead of Bhubaneswar:
1. Orissa has close to 50+ ESI medical clinics and a half dozen or so medical hospitals. These ESI clinics are the Tier-III medical facilities where the patients go initially for the consultation. Based on the severity of their cases, they are referred to the Tier-II ESI medical hospitals. Most of these Tier-II ESI medical hospitals are located closer to Rourkela than Bhubaneswar. Based on the numbers of members and their usage pattern, one could easily see most of these members live in places closer to Rourkela
than Bhubaneswar.
2. When these ESI members travel to these medical hospitals, the out of pocket allowance they receive from ESI is meager. So it would be an additional hardship for these members to travel to Bhubaneswar at a greater distance and a costlier city for specialty medical care.
3. Since most of the Tier-II medical facilities are located closer to Rourkela, it would be a boon for the ESI doctors working in these hospitals to get additional training and the patients could be referred for additional diagnostics (CAT scan, MRI scan, Ultrasound, advanced blood works) and thus improving the decision making if the medical college to be located closer to the existing hospitals.
4. Most of these members live in the geographical segment of Orissa that is under the evil grip of the growing Sickle Cell disease and cerebral malaria. Both these medical challenges require quick access to specialty medical care which could be provided if these patients travel to the specialty medical closer to their home which again makes Rourkela a more ideal location.
5. ESI would be spending 600 crores to build and run this medical college. Orissa should not lose this investment. Also 50% of the seats would be reserved for students from the domiciled state which would again benefit our children if we get this medical college in Orissa.
6. The state has to give a contiguous cluster of 35 acres of land for this ESI medical college at no cost to ESI. This kind of land would cost close to at least 10 crores an acre in Bhubaneswar whereas it would cost no more than a crore in Rourkela. From a pure selfish perspective, why not we give 35 crores (35 acres in Rourkela) rather than 350 crores (35 acres in Bhubaneswar) to get this investment of 600 crores from ESI.
We are looking up to you to work across the party lines to get this beneficial scheme for Orissa. To have this medical college in Rourkela would significantly improve the health of the growing workforce and thus bring in additional investments for Orissa. We know you both could make this happen and the ESI members would be eternally thankful to you for your leadership.
With my best regards,
Purna
ps – Originally from Bhubaneswar but currently lives in North America
Following are three recent videos on Vedanta University from youtube. The first two are about couple of CSR activities undertaken by Vedanta University and the third one is a collage of Vedanta University design diagrams.
The Vedanta University Teaching Hospital located in the State of Orissa, India, will be the first building of the ambitious Vedanta University Master Plan. As a first building, the hospital’s orientation, program and design represent a signifi¬cant opportunity to launch Vedanta University and provide connectivity between the campus and the community.
The Vedanta Teaching Hospital was programmed initially for 500 acute care beds and 67 intensive care beds (Phase l). In a future phase (Phase2), the bed
count will double.
The Guiding Principles in the development of the Space Program relate program-matically to the idea of creating true synergy between research, teaching and clinical care, as well as creating Centers of Excellence in the areas of Cardiology and Endocrinology. Physically, the Space Program is conceived as highly modu¬lar so as to be able to grow and evolve with ease and flexibility. The Inpatient and Outpatient spaces are conceived as relating programmatically by level.
The architectural and operational framework of the organization’s information technology capability is envisioned as a mission-critical 24/7 operational util¬ity service delivered and managed in a cost-effective manner. In addition, the selection of state-of-the-art medical equipment for both patient care and clinical research will be a critical success factor for the university.
The right side of that page lists other projects handled by Jensen Partners. It includes UCLA and Emory University (Atlanta).
Update: This article in healthcaredesignmagazine.com also mentions the design. Some Chinese sites such this one and this one also mention it. This article at the freelibrary.com shows that Perkin+Wills is one of the top architectural firms in LA county and its 2008 billings included billing Vedanta University Hospital.
Working together with the Anil Agarwal Foundation, Perkins+Will have developed the master plan for the Medical Precinct of a new teaching hospital in the extremely remote section of Puri, Orissa, India.
Vedanta University Teaching Hospital is part of a very ambitious plan to develop this rural area into a global center of education and healthcare that would be on par with Harvard, Stanford and Oxford. The 500-bed world-class facility, set to open in 2011, would serve as a regional hub for critical medical specialties such as cardiology and diabetes and focus research on prevalent public health issues in the surrounding area. With the heart of the project geared toward giving back to the community, Perkins+Will architects have carefully incorporated the area’s cultural values by working with local materials and artisans to capture India’s modern art trends within the building plans.
Additionally, some of the hospital’s sustainable features will include daylighting, atriums, storm water management and water conservation through site run-off and an onsite sewage treatment plant, use of local materials, landscaping with local plants and green roof.
Update 2: Sundergarh MP Mr. Hemanada Biswal is now the Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Labour. ESIC comes under the Labour ministry. So getting in touch with Mr. Biswal will also help. His MP biography is at http://164.100.47.132/LssNew/Members/Biography.aspx?mpsno=4416.
Dear all: It is time to translate words to action. Please send similar letters to the Chief Minister ( cmo at ori.nic.in ) with copy to some journalists (for example, http://www.tathya.in/2009/contactus.asp ), laborweb@nic.in, and jd-sys@esic.nic.in. Please ask your like minded friends to do the same. When you write the letter, please sign your name and give your address, especially your address in Orissa.
Dear Esteemed Chief Minister:
We would like to request that you urgently allocate the necessary 32 acres of land for an ESIC medical college in Rourkela and vigorously pursue with the ESIC authorities for the establishment of the same in Rourkela.
[We applaud your earlier attempt in pursuing an ESIC medical college in Balangir and understand that ESIC did not agree to it as it does not have enough ESIC insured persons in the Balangir area. We request that you pursue other ways of having a medical college in Balangir and also pursue other infrastructural elements for Balangir such as a state university, a state/central funded engineering college like SLIET (Punjab) and ABA GKC IET (West Bengal) and the Khurda-Balangir line. ]
Coming back to ESIC medical college, Rourkela is the second largest metropolitan area of Orissa. Unfortunately, it is also the largest metropolitan area of its size in the country which does not have a medical college. (It is also the largest metropolitan area of the country which does not have a regular university.) On the other hand Rourkela is the current industrial hub of Orissa and has a significant number of ESIC insured persons. This is evident from the fact that the only ESIC model hospital in Orissa is in Rourkela. Moreover, another ESIC hospital is in nearby Kansbahal and an ESIC annex is in nearby Rajgangpur. The complete list of ESIC hospitals in Orissa is at http://esicorissa.org/hospital.htm. Moreover recent newspaper reports (Statesman 5th March 2009, Naxatra News) mention that the ESIC authorities are agreeable for having an ESIC medical college in Rourkela. Following is the news report.
Rourkela, March 4: The Orissa Unit of the CITU has urged the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) authorities at New Delhi to establish a medical college at Rourkela.
A delegation of CITU leaders led by its state unit general secretary Mr Bishnu Mohanty met the Director, ESIC, Mr S Chaturbedi at New Delhi yesterday and pleaded for establishment of an ESIC Medical College stating that over 50 per cent of the total revenue was generated from Rourkela.
A large number of small and medium industries were located in Western Orissa and thousands of workers were contributing and dependent on ESIC, they said.
According to Mr Mohanty, the ESIC director had agreed to the proposal and said if the state government provided 32 acre his organisation would spent about Rs 500 crores for the establishment of a medical college.
Dear Sir:
In summary, Rourkela has the need, the necessary ESIC insured persons concentration, and ESIC is agreeable to an ESI medical college there. All that is needed is for you to immediately allocate 32 acres of land as required by ESIC and tell them that Rourkela is your priority 1 in terms of an ESIC medical college.
It has been reported that you may have allocated the land for an ESIC medical college in Bhubaneswar. Many of us are from Bhubaneswar and considering that it already has 4 functioning medical colleges with several new ones in the pipeline that includes an AIIMS-like institution and a Railway medical college, we request that Rourkela be your priority 1 in terms of an ESIC medical college.
Accordingly, three medical colleges at Cuttack, Balasore and Rayagada, in the PPP mode, are on the anvil. Acharya is also interested in providing similar facility at Jharsuguda. Private partners will set up the medical colleges and hospitals as per the Medical Council of India guidelines.
The State Government will provide 25 acres of land, and agreements will be signed with the private promoters accordingly. As per the guidelines, a medical college in the KBK districts will attract one-time Government grant.
The Government is eyeing private partners having hospitals of national and State presence, charitable, religious groups managing hospitals and groups of doctors, interested to set up and manage hospitals. Lands for the hospitals have been identified by the PPP Cell with the help of the district administration.
Lets see how these go. Considering that the earlier proposed WODC supported PPP medical colleges in Bhawanipatna, Balangir and Rourkela have not yet commenced classes I will keep my fingers crossed.
