PM Modi cancels visit to TN, will inaugurate 11 govt medical colleges online
CHENNAI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to inaugurate 11 new government medical colleges in Tamil Nadu and the new campus of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT) in Chennai, at 4 pm on Wednesday via video conferencing.
He was earlier scheduled to inaugurate the medical colleges at an event in Virudhunagar, and participate in the Pongal festivities organised by the BJP. But these programmes were cancelled because of the fresh restrictions issued to control the spread of Covid-19.
The new colleges are being established at an estimated cost of Rs 4,000 crore, of which about `2,145 crore has been provided by the Union government and the rest by the State government, said a release from the Prime Minister’s Office.
The medical colleges are being set up in Virudhunagar, Namakkal, The Nilgiris, Tiruppur, Thiruvallur, Nagapattinam, Dindigul, Kallakurichi, Ariyalur, Ramanathapuram, and Krishnagiri districts. They will have a cumulative capacity of 1,450 seats, and are being established under a Centrally-sponsored scheme — ‘Establishing of New Medical Colleges Attached With Existing District/Referral Hospitals’ — under which medical colleges are set up in districts that don’t have any medical colleges.
The release also said the establishment of a new campus of the CICT in Chennai is in line with the Prime Minister’s vision to preserve Indian heritage and promote classical languages. The campus is fully funded by the Union government and built at a cost of Rs 24 crore. CICT, which was operating from a rented building, will now function from a new three-storey campus with a spacious library, an e-library, seminar halls, and a multimedia hall.
An autonomous organisation under the Union Ministry of Education, CICT contributes to the promotion of classical Tamil by conducting research to establish the ancientness and uniqueness of the Tamil language. The institute’s library has over 45,000 ancient Tamil Books.
The institute holds seminars and training programmes, and grants fellowships, among other things. It also aims to translate and publish ‘Thirukkural’ into various Indian as well as 100 foreign languages.
New institutes to have 1,450 seats
The medical colleges are being set up in Virudhunagar, Namakkal, The Nilgiris, Tiruppur, Thiruvallur, Nagapattinam, Dindigul, Kallakurichi, Ariyalur, Ramanathapuram, and Krishnagiri districts. They will have a total of 1,450 seats