Archive for November, 2012
Government of Odisha has sanctioned money for the development of Utkela air strip in Kalahandi
Thanks to Dillip Kumar Das, ANTODAYA, Kalahandi for providing following information:
MP Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo urges PM for medical college in Balangir
Following report is from the Pioneer:
Balangir BJD MP Kalikesh Narayan Singh Deo has demanded setting up of a medical college at Balangir in vie of the Union Government’s decision to establish 60 medical colleges in the country during the period from 2012 to 2017.
He, in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, has urged him to consider the request for medical college keeping in view the backwardness and poor health service facilities in this KBK region. Singh Deo has stated that as the Union Government has decided to allow Odisha four medical colleges out of the 60 during the Twelfth Plan period in partnership with the State Government, Balangir should be included in the list. Balangir is in the KBK region, where health conditions of the people are poor, he has pointed out.
The Balangir District Headquarters Hospital is facing infrastructure inadequacies though a lot of improvements have been made by the State Government. With a large number of patients needing healthcare, setting up of a medical college at Balangir would go a long way in this regard, said Singh Deo.
He has argued that setting up of a medical college would ease the severe shortage of medical professionals such as doctors and helping hands for medical care. Odisha has less number of Government medical colleges compared to the neighbouring States like Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala and Maharashtra, he has pointed out.
In fact a medical college is more than an educational institution for local people in backward pockets. It serves as a hospital for secondary and tertiary health facilities providing better service and facilities for locals in backward region, he has further pointed out. It may be noted that though the State Government tried to set up a private medical college with funds from the Western Odisha Development Council (WODC), private promoters have been backing out from the project.
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Odisha urges centre for four government medical colleges
Following is a report from the Pioneer:
Health and Family Welfare Minister Damodar Rout on Friday demanded 100 per cent support from the Central Government for setting up of four new medical colleges in the State.
Rout pressed the demands before the Centre while attending a two-day meeting of Health Ministers and Secretaries from all States convened by the Union Health Ministry in New Delhi.
Highlighting the development in the health sector of Odisha, Rout sought more Central aids for different programmes being implemented in the sector. Expressing grave concern over the health condition of primitive tribals and their low population growth rate, he advocated for greater focus on the tribal dominated districts, particularly the Kalahandi, Balangir and Koraput (KBK) region where both infant mortality rate (IMR) and maternal mortality rate (MMR) as well as mortality and morbidity rates are high because of incidences of various diseases, especially malaria and diarrhoea.
In the last 11 years, Rout stated the State has made significant strides in bringing down IMR and MMR. Still, the IMR in the State is 57 per 1,000 live births and MMR 258 per lakh live births. The figures are still higher than the national average and hence much need to be done to reduce them,” said Rout, adding, “For development and upgradation of health infrastructure in the State, we need Centre’s full support.”
Rout also drew the attention of the Union Health Minister for opening of Regional Geriatric and Cancer Centres in all the Government medical colleges and sanctioning more ANM and GNM training centers for the State. Further, Rout urged the Central Government to increase its share in the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and reduce the State’s share from 25 per cent to 15 per cent.
Health and Family Welfare secretary Pradeepta Kumar Mohapatra and Mission Director of NRHM (Odisha) Dr Pramod Meherda attended the meeting.
Following is another report from TOI:
BHUBANESWAR: In good tidings for aspiring medical students, Odisha is all set to have four new government medical colleges, reducing the competition for admission into MBBS to some extent.
In a new experiment, the Union government is planning to open over 60 medical colleges across the country in partnership with the state governments during the 12th five year plan period (2012-2017). The Union government would fund 75% of the cost while the respective states will bear the rest 25%.
Sources said the Centre has responded favourably to a proposal of the Odisha government to open four colleges in the state. A senior state government functionary said the Centre has already given its on-principle nod to the proposal. The medical colleges would have 100MBBS seats each to begin with, he said.
Confirming the state’s move, health secretary Pradipta KumarMahapatra told TOI, “We have proposed to convert four district headquarters hospitals into medical colleges under the new plan. We are hopeful the plan will materialize.” Mahapatra said the government will select the four district hospitals in due course of time.
Government sources said availability of MBBS seats will substantially increase from next academic year irrespective of the fate of the proposed four new colleges. The government is planning to add 100 MBBS seats in SCB Medical College from 2013-14. The government has already sought the permission of the Medical Council of India for the hike.
At present, there are 500 MBBS seats in government sector in the state. These include 150 MBBS seats each in the three state-government run colleges: SCB, VSS Medical College and MKCG Medical College and 50 MBBS seats in the Union government-run All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).
After increasing the seats in SCB to 250 from next academic year, the state is also planning similar increase in seats in the two other colleges in subsequent years. Similarly, the Union government has announced to increase the MBBS seats in AIIMS to 100.
In private sector, there are 400 MBBS seats at present, 100 each in the four private medical colleges including three in Bhubaneswar and one in Rourkela. The private sector seats are likely to go up by another 100 from next year when an upcoming private medical college at Jaring in Kalahandi district starts admission.
The Centre has responded favourably to a proposal of the Odisha government to open four colleges in the state. The medical colleges would have 100 MBBS seats each to begin with, officials said
Sambalpur university starts three new PG courses
BHUBANESWAR: Sambalpur University has experienced a mixed bag this academic year as far as new courses are concerned. While its post graduate course on rural management, introduced this year, failed to appeal to students, forcing the authorities to put the course in abeyance, two new courses on masters in Hindi and masters in performing art (MPA) have found ready takers.
The University had introduced rural management, a self-finance course in this education year with a sanctioned strength of 20 students. There were only 14 applicants of which 11 took admission. Since this is a self-financing course, the University declined to run it with only 11 students. “We had to put the course in abeyance for this education year because of poor response from students. However, we will release advertisements again for the course in the coming year,” said Sukadeb Naik, chairman of PG council. He said that the 11 students were asked either to take admission in sociology or take back the admission fee.
University registrar Sudhansu Sekhar Rath said the rural management course was designed as per Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) and it is not known why there were so few applications. “The course modules were of good standard. We kept the course under sociology department to maintain quality,” said Rath. He suspected less publicity about the course could be the reason of low student interest.
Other two new courses by the university — masters in Hindi and masters in performing art (MPA) – have, however, received good response from students. These two courses are regular ones. “This education year while for Hindi we received 54 applications against sanctioned strength of 16 students, for MPA, we received 23 forms against strength of 16 each for dance and drama section. So the ratio between number of application and students strength is quite high in Hindi department. We are hopeful that MPA will also pick up,” said Naik.
He said because of MPA the university won’t have to hire artistes from outside for participating in different cultural shows on the campus. “Earlier we were required to hire performers by paying them good money for participating in various cultural shows. Not anymore, thanks to MPA,” Naik said.
Kosal Discussion and Development Forum 