PM to virtually inaugurate 11 medical colleges in Tamil Nadu tomorrow: Health Minister
Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramanian Tuesday said due to lockdown restrictions in view of a surge in the number of Covid-19 cases, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was scheduled to visit Virudhunagar in Tamil Nadu to inaugurate 11 new medical colleges alongside Chief Minister MK Stalin on January 12, will now attend the event via video conferencing.
Subramanian said the event will take place at the secretariat in Chennai at 4 pm Wednesday. He added, “Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will visit Chennai tomorrow (Wednesday) to participate in the event,” he said.
The new medical colleges are being established in Virudhunagar, Namakkal, Nilgiris, Tiruppur, Thiruvallur, Nagapattinam, Dindigul, Kallakurichi, Ariyalur, Ramanathapuram and Krishnagiri at an estimated cost of around Rs 4,000 crore of which, around Rs 2,145 crore will come from the Union government.
According to a statement released by the PM’s Office, the establishment of these medical colleges are in line with “the PM’s constant endeavor to promote affordable medical education and improve the health infrastructure across the country”.
“The new medical colleges with a cumulative capacity of 1,450 seats are being established under the centrally sponsored scheme of ‘Establishing of New Medical Colleges attached with 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 release read.
PM Modi will also inaugurate a new campus of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT) in Perumbakkam via video conferencing. The new campus of CICT in Chennai is built at a cost of Rs 24 crore. CICT, which was operating from a rented building so far, will now operate from a new three-storey campus. The campus is equipped with a spacious library, an e-library, seminar halls and a multimedia hall.
A few days ago, Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai said they are postponing Modi’s Pongal event in view of the rising number of Covid-19 infections in the state.
