CONVERT SARDAR MED COLLEGE INTO HEALTH VARSITY, CM URGED

The Pioneer, Aug 7, 2015

The demand for taking over the Sardar Raja Medical College, a private college, at Jaring in Kalahandi district is gaining momentum day by day as different quarters, including students, intellectuals and political leaders, have come forward raising their voices with ‘justifiable’ reasons in the last one week.

In a letter, Digambara Patra, an Associate Professor of an American University, has urged Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to take over the medical college to the Government fold soon as the Selvam Educational Trust, which established it, is not capable to run the institution. Though a total of 130 students had taken admissions in the last two years, yet their hopes for becoming doctors have shattered due to lack of infrastructure and faculties.

“For the past five years, there has been a growing demand by the students, intellectuals and political leaders to either establish a fully Government medical college by upgrading the District Headquarters Hospital in Bhawanipatna or taking over the Sardar Raja Medical College. The issue has come many times in the State Assembly in the past 10 years,” he mentioned in the letter.

He said the State Government has every right to cancel the MoU as the trust has not been able to make the institute full-fledged in five years. Lack of infrastructure and non appointment of faculties in these five years gives sufficient legal ground to take over the institution by the Government, he reasoned out.

Reminding the Chief Minister about his Government’s proposal to establish a Health University, Patra too urged him to convert the Sardar Raja Medical College into a health varsity.

“Establishing a health university in Kalahandi district will also not bring any regional disparity because Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Puri, Brahmapur, Baleswar, Baripada, Koraput, Balangir, Sambalpur, Talcher and Sundergarh have either an existing Government medical college or are going to have such an institution in near future. Similarly, Rourkela has also a WODC-sponsored private medical college and Keonjhar is going to have private medical college soon,” he argued.