Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy met Union Health Minister Dr Mansukh Mandaviya on Saturday and requested to sanction medical colleges in 12 districts at the earliest while saying that the state government can complete the works by December 2023 and start admissions from the 2024 academic session.
The Chief Minister said the bifurcation of the state has deprived its residents of critical tertiary care facilities and added that one of the important aspects of access to tertiary care and the creation of a pool of trained manpower is the availability of an adequate number of medical colleges in the public sector.
The Chief Minister said Andhra Pradesh used to have only 13 districts for a population of more than 5.4 crore and to make the administration more responsive and efficacious, the state government has created 13 more districts, which started functioning on April 4, 2022.
The chief minister said Andhra Pradesh has 11 medical colleges in the public sector and three more, one each at Paderu (Alluri Sitharama Raju district), Machilipatnam (Krishna district), Piduguralla (Palnadu district), were sanctioned by the central government on March 20, 2020, and added the works for these three colleges are in full swing.
He said the state has 14 government medical colleges as against 26 districts and added that taking the new districts into account, there are 12 districts without government medical colleges, including Vizianagaram, Parvathipuram Manyam, Anakapalli, Konaseema, East Godavari, West Godavari, Eluru, Bapatla, Chittoor, Annamayya, Sri Satyasai and Nandyal and urged the minister to sanction them.
Meanwhile, CM Jagan Mohan Reddy attended the joint conference of Chief Ministers and High Court Chief Justices of various states at Vignan Bhavan in New Delhi on Saturday.
