PM inaugurates 11 new medical colleges and a new campus of CICT in Tamil Nadu

Addressing the gathering, the prime minister said that with the  inauguration of 11 medical colleges and the inauguration of the new building of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil health of the society is being furthered and at the same time our connection with our culture is getting stronger.

The number of medical under graduate and post graduate seats have now gone up to around 1,48,000 seats,  an increase of about 80 per cent from 82,000 seats in 2014

“The future will belong to societies that invest in healthcare. The Government of India has brought many reforms in the sector.” He said.

“A support of over Rs3,000 crore would be provided to Tamil Nadu in the next five years. This will help in establishing/ urban health and wellness centres, district public health labs  and critical care blocks across the state,” he added.

The prime minister said the stablishment of new medical colleges across the country would help address the shortage of doctors in the country, which had remained an issue for a very long time, adding that his government made it a priority to address this critical gap. 

In 2014, the country had 387 medical colleges and this number has gone up by 54 per cent to 596 in the last seven years alone.

Also, Modi pointed out that in 2014 there were only seven AIIMS in the country, which has now increased to 22. At the same time, various reforms have been undertaken to make the medical education sector more transparent, he said.  

The prime minister pointed out that inaugurating 11 medical colleges in one go in Tamil Nadu is, in a way, a new record for him after he recently inaugurated nine medical colleges in Uttar Pradesh. 

The new medical colleges are being established at an estimated cost of about Rs4,000 crore, out of which around Rs2,145 crore has been provided by the union government and the rest by the Tamil Nadu government. These colleges will be spread over the districts of Virudhunagar, Namakkal, Nilgiris, Tiruppur, Thiruvallur, Nagapattinam, Dindigul, Kallakurichi, Ariyalur, Ramanathapuram and Krishnagiri. 

Establishment of these medical colleges is in line with the prime minister's constant endeavour to promote affordable medical education and improve health infrastructure in all parts of the country. The new medical colleges, with cumulative capacity of 1,450 seats, are being established under the Centrally Sponsored scheme of ’Establishing of New Medical Colleges attached to existing district/referral hospital’. Under the scheme, medical colleges are established in districts, which do not have either a government or private medical college.

The establishment of a new campus of Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT) in Chennai is in line with the prime minister’s vision to protect and preserve Indian heritage and promote classical languages. The new campus is fully funded by the union government and is built at a cost of Rs24 crore. CICT, which was operating from a rented building so far, will now operate from a new 3-storey campus. The new campus is equipped with a spacious library, an e-library, seminar halls and a multimedia hall.

An autonomous organisation under the union ministry of education, CICT is contributing to the promotion of classical Tamil by doing research activities so as to establish the ancientness and uniqueness of Tamil language. The institute library has a rich collection of over 45,000 ancient Tamil books. To promote classical Tamil and support its students, the institute engages in academic activities like holding seminars and training programmes, granting fellowship etc. It also aims to translate and publish ‘Thirukkural’ in various Indian as well as 100 foreign languages. The new campus will provide an efficient working environment for the institute in its pursuit of promoting classical Tamil across the world.