The Central government will spend Rs 150 crore during the next financial year for the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) to make a take-off finally, helping augment facilities of medical education in existing institutes and setting up of six new AIIMS-like premier institutions in the country.
The process of upgradation of 13 existing medical colleges, under the scheme that envisages strengthening the tertiary sector, would be completed by 2009. The new six premier institutions are likely to be operational by 2010-11, according to the sources.
However, given the minimal allocation for the scheme, which will run into over Rs 3500 crore, it will take many years to be materialised. The Centre may go in for private partnership for the massive project of setting up new institutions in the states of Bihar (Patna), Madhya Pradesh (Bhopal), Orissa (Bhubaneshwar), Rajasthan (Jodhpur), Chhattisgarh (Raipur) and Uttaranchal (Rishikesh) at an estimated cost of Rs 332 crore per institution. The Health Ministry has already invited global tenders from consultancy firms seeking architectural designs for the institutes and it is likely to be finalised by the end of this month.
Each institution will have one 850-bedded hospital intended to provide healthcare facilities in 39 speciality/super-speciality disciplines. Medical College will have 100 UG in-take besides facilities for imparting PG/doctoral courses in various disciplines. The scheme was approved in March last year. For upgradation, each institute will get Rs 120 crore each, with Centre providing Rs 100 crore and the remaining by the concerned state government.
The medical colleges that will be upgraded under the scheme included Govt. Medical College, Jammu (J&K), Govt. Medical College, Srinagar (J&K), Kolkatta Medical College, Kolkatta (WB), Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow (U.P), Institute of Medical Sciences, BHU, Varanasi (UP), Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad (A.P), Sri Venkateshwara Institute of Medical Sciences, Tirupati (AP) (50 per cent cost of upgradation will be borne by the TTD Trust), Govt. Medical College, Salem (T.N.), Patliputra Medical College & Hospital, Dhanbad (Jharkhand), B.J. Medical College, Ahmedabad (Gujarat), Bangalore Medical College, Bangalore (Karnataka), Grant Medical College & Sir J.J. Group Of Hospitals, Mumbai, (Maharashtra), and Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram, (Kerala).