Bihar: Health department to set up 2 medical colleges on its own, as PSUs decline

RANCHI:The state Health Education and Family Welfare Department has decided to go ahead on its own in setting up two medical college hospitals in Jharkhand after it was declined support by PSU’s and corporate to help set them up on PPP mode.

Elaborate detailed project reports (DPR’s) of two medical colleges in Bokaro city and Chaibasa in West Singbhum have been prepared for the setting up of the two facilities. Earlier the proposal for upgrading/setting up these two health hubs, on two plots of 25 acres each was given to Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), Tata Steel, Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) and Central Coalfields Limited (CCL). The companies were supposed to have upgraded their existing hospitals into medical college hospitals with the help of the Union health Ministry.
The health education wing of the department has revealed that the two plots of 25 acres each have been identified in Bokaro and chaibasa and the final estimate is to be ready by the end of the year.

Outgoing Additional Secretary, K Vidyasagar said: "The hospitals will initially be made operational with 50-100 seats. Once sanctioned, the colleges will come up in two to three years".

It was in early 2009, that the state Health Education and Family Welfare Department had floated this initiative to the PSU s and Corporates. Under this scheme hospitals with 300 bed capacity were to be converted to medical college hospitals under a 50:50 cost sharing program between the state and Centre.