Centre denies receiving proposal for new medical colleges in Telangana

Hyderabad: After denying having received any proposal from the Telangana government to increase tribal reservation recently, the union Government on Friday claimed that the State government did not send any proposal for establishment of new government medical colleges in Telangana. Replying to a question raised by A Revanth Reddy in Lok Sabha, Minister of State […]

Hyderabad: After denying having received any proposal from the Telangana government to increase tribal reservation recently, the union Government on Friday claimed that the State government did not send any proposal for establishment of new government medical colleges in Telangana.

Replying to a question raised by A Revanth Reddy in Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Bharati Pravin Pawar said no proposals were received from Telangana State for establishment of new medical college under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) for ‘Establishment of new medical colleges attached with existing district/referral hospitals’. The Centre launched the scheme in 2014 to establish new medical colleges with preference to underserved areas and aspirational districts, where there is no existing government or private medical colleges.

Under the scheme launched in 2014, 157 new medical colleges have been approved in three phases and 71 are already functional. The Centre asked all the States and union Territories to submit proposals under Phase-III of the scheme. The union Minister said no proposals were received from Telangana State in this regard. All the 75 medical colleges approved under Phase-III of the scheme have been already allocated.

The statement made by the union Minister was in utter disregard to the repeated requests from the Telangana government seeking government medical colleges. Apart from raising the issue repeatedly in the Parliament, the State government took up the matter with the Centre on at least a dozen occasions.

On June 21 of 2015, the then Health Minister C Laxma Reddy wrote a letter to the then union Minister JP Nadda urging the Centre to upgrade the district hospitals into medical colleges. Responding to the same, Nadda wrote a letter on November 26 of 2015 stating that the medical colleges sought by the State were not in the list of hospitals approved by the union Cabinet for upgradation under the CSS.

Though the State pursued the issue with the Centre repeatedly, there was no positive response. On August 8 of 2019, another letter was written by the State government to the then Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, urging him to upgrade the district hospitals especially in Karimnagar and Khammam district hospitals to medical colleges. In response, he wrote a letter on August 30 of 2019, stating that the government could not cover Telangana in Phase-1 and Phase-2 of the CSS but would definitely consider the same in Phase-3. Now, the Centre has once again shown its step-motherly treatment towards Telangana.

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