250 seats by Pvt college linked to South goa district hospital
the goan I network
PANAJI
Goa is on course to double its intake of medical students to 500 soon with the State government finalising PriceWaterhouse Coopers as the consultant to proceed with its controversial decision to link a private medical college to the new South Goa District Hospital in Margao.
Addressing a press conference on Monday, Health Minister Vishwajit Rane said, the consultant will advise the government on the steps to be taken to take on board a private player through the Public-Private-Participation (PPP) route to set up the medical college.
“It will be under us with staff but what services we are facing a deficiency in, the private player will provide and run,” Rane said, adding that in another four to five months, the medical college and hospital will be commissioned.
Should Rane’s claims play out in the next 3-4 months as he says, it will be the first private medical college to operate in Goa decades after a similar attempt by the State to set up a capitation fee-based medical college was aborted in the early 1980s after an uproar by the student community. Incidentally Rane’s father, Pratapsing Rane was the chief minister then and was linked to the proposal lobbied for by the then Education Minister Harish Zantye.
The health minister justified the decision to permit a private medical college by saying that Goans will get more medical seats.
“At least 30-40 seats will be reserved for Goans,” Rane claimed.
Recruitment row
Meanwhile, staff shortages were severely affecting the operations at the Goa Medical College and Hospital at Bambolim, Rane said, adding that the issue of recruitment will be sorted out internally by the government.
“Let the CM do it. Wait till
December 31 and we’ll give the CM time to get things organised,” Rane said, adding that the recruitment process should ideally be completed within the next 14-15 months.
He said, vacancies keep piling up with superannuation.
“It’s an ongoing process. The load is tremendous at the GMC. We are overloaded,” Rane said.
Rane was locked in a tiff with Chief Minister Pramod Sawant after the latter put a spoke in the recruitment process already set in motion by the GMC to fill up over a thousand posts including nurses, paramedics and other technical and non-technical positions.
Sawant directed all government recruitment processes to halt after the Goa Staff Selection Commission law got assent of the governor in September-October and directed that henceforth all recruitment for non-gazetted posts will be routed through the SSC.
