VIJAYAWADA: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy met Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya in New Delhi and urged him to sanction new medical colleges for 12 districts in Andhra Pradesh at the earliest to enable the State government to complete the construction works by December, 2023 and start admissions from the 2024 academic year.
The Chief Minister said the bifurcation had deprived people of AP of critical tertiary care facilities. An adequate number of medical colleges in the public sector is essential for the creation of a pool of trained manpower to provide access to tertiary care to people. Andhra Pradesh used to have only 13 districts for a population of more than 5.4 crore. In order to make the administration more responsive and efficient, the State government has created 13 more districts, which started functioning from April 4, 2022, he explained.
Now, Andhra Pradesh has 11 medical colleges in the public sector. Three more, one each at Paderu (Alluri Sitarama Raju district), Machilipatnam (Krishna), Piduguralla (Palnadu) were sanctioned by the Centre on March 20, 2020. The works of the three colleges are going on at a brisk pace. Hence, the State has a total of 14 government medical colleges for 26 districts.
Considering the formation of new districts, the government has proposed 12 new medical colleges in Vizianagaram, Parvathipuram Manyam, Anakapalle, Konaseema, East Godavari, West Godavari, Eluru, Bapatla, Chittoor, Annamayya, Sri Sathya Sai and Nandyal districts. Hence, the Centre should sanction the 12 new medical colleges for AP at the earliest, he urged.