MCI team visits upcoming Koratput Medical College

Odisha: The upcoming Medical College Hospital at Koraput town was visited by a three member Medical Council of India(MCI), team on Wednesday to take stock of the progress. The three member visiting team comprised of Dr K Shankar from Vijayawada,Dr Manik Charterjee from Raipur and Dr Subhankar from Osmania University, Hyderabad.

The college is being built on a 52 acre plot at an estimated cost of Rs. 187 crore, with the centre bearing 75 % of the cost.

Apart from visiting the MCH premises, the visiting team also took a round of the wards in the District Headquarters Hospital and spoke to officials present there. They also visited the Primary Health Centres at Sunabeda and Dumuriput, that will serve as peripheral work place for the students.

The existing 188-bed District Headquarters Hospital will be upgraded, as per the norms of MCI, while the medical college will be affiliated to the Berhampur University (BU), as reported by TNIE.

The proposal of the Director Medical Education and Training (DMET) for affiliation to 100 seats of the medical college was accepted by the BU syndicate last year.

Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik laid the foundation stone of the college on August 3, 2015. The infra structure of the college is supposed to be ready by March next year, as the government is willing to start admission in the college by then. Though the final process of admissions can only be finalized after the MCI gives its nod. According to sources, though the building takeover by the state government might happen in March, it is not clear yet whether the government can complete recruitment of faculty and non-faculty members before that.

Five other government colleges at Balasore, Koraput, Balangir, Baripada and Puri were given an approval in 2014. They were meant to have a student intake of a 100 each and Rs. 200 crore was meant to be spent on up gradation of each of the DHHs to a full-fledged medical college and hospital in each district.