Odisha HRD

Appeal to CM Naveen Patnaik: Please pursue ESIC medical college near Rourkela

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.

Update: Please also copy your mail to rckhuntia@gmail.com and rckhuntia007@yahoo.co.in.

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.

(If ESIC has some weakness or need for the Bhubaneswar area it may have its second medical college of Orissa in Bhubaneswar as it is doing in Karnataka where it is establishing two medical colleges, one in Bangalore and one in Gulbarga. Or, it may have additional post-graduate programs in Bhubaneswar as it is doing in Tamil nadu where the ESIC medical college imparting undergraduate education will be in Coimbatore, but the Aynavaram ESI Hospital in Chennai would offer post-graduate courses.)

sincerely

38 comments September 1st, 2009

What are the other locations for ESI Medical colleges? Work-in-progress

Following is an excerpt from a thaindia report of July 13, 2008.

The Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) Corporation that provides healthcare facilities to industrial workers has decided to step into the field of medical education. In an innovative move, it will set up 28 medical colleges and start post graduation courses by the next academic session. “From service provider we are going to be a medical education network. We are setting up 28 medical colleges by the 2009 academic session,” said Pravash C. Chaturvedi, director general of ESI Corp.

“We are aware that there is a shortage of doctors and it’s no different for ESI hospitals across the country. By the next academic year, we are planning to start 500 seats at the post graduation level,” Chaturvedi told IANS in an interview.

He said the ESI Corp, which is under the Ministry of Labour and Employment, aims to set up a medical college in every state and become self-reliant.

“The adding of 500 medical seats will help aspiring students every year, and in return we will get qualified doctors to serve in our own hospitals.

“A while ago we had put our proposal before the health ministry and have already got the go ahead. We have the capital and manpower, and now have the ministry’s support too,” he said.

The ESI Corp is associated with over 331,000 factories and establishments across the country and provides benefits to about 10 million workers and their families. “There are over 40 million beneficiaries,” he said.

It applies to industrial workers drawing wages up to Rs.10,000 per month.

Below we will try to compile information about the location of these medical colleges in various states. (Any pointers from the readers are most welcome.)

1. Himachal Pradesh – Mandi.
2. Karnataka – Gulbarga, Bangalore.
3. Kerala – Paripally (Kollam).
4. Tamilnadu – Coimbatore.
5. Bihar – Patna.
6. West Bengal – Howrah.
7. Rajasthan – Alwar.

11 comments August 29th, 2009