Karnataka government’s department of Medical Education is making efforts to open at least three of the six new government medical colleges in the next academic year. The construction of buildings is underway. The colleges will come up in Chamrajnagar, Kodagu, Uttara Kannada, Koppal, Gadag and Kalaburgi district . Each college is proposed to have 150 seats.

The department has also now intimated to the Medical Council of India (MCI) to seek an approval for commencing the opening of four out of its six new medical colleges. These include The Siddharata Academy of Higher Education and East West Institute have proposed to open the colleges in Bengaluru while Kanachur and Sambhram institutes have applied to open the colleges in Mangaluru and Kolar districts.

“We have now approved the new medical colleges and recommended to the MCI that the permission be granted for the same. This apart the construction of the buildings for the colleges in districts of Koppal, Gadag, Kalaburgi and the erstwhile Gulbarga is likely to be completed by this financial year but starting of the colleges will depend on MCI’s permission, said Karnataka medical education minister Sharanprakash Patil.

Recently the department also communicated to the MCI which needs to issue the letter of permission to start the colleges. MCI inspectors are expected to visit the colleges in March 2015, he said.

The department has also sought the government permission to start its ow engineering wing so that civil works pertaining to hospital  colleges could be completed without any delay, he said.

Considerable efforts are also on the anvil to increase the post graduate medical seats by at least 25 per cent in both government and private medical colleges. This would see the qualified doctors made available to serve at the district hospitals in the various specialisations, said Minister Patil.

The department of medical education is also in charge of the overseeing the setting up of advanced infrastructure at the government hospitals. In this regard, it is working to set up trauma centre at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS). At the lone government owned caner hospital: Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology, the state government would also  augment the number of radiation equipment to bring down the waiting period from three weeks to zero enabling patients to be administered daily dose of the therapy with no delays.