West Bengal seeks medical colleges in public-private partnership

KOLKATA - The West Bengal government is in talks with the central government and the Medical Council of India (MCI) to explore the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model for developing medical colleges in the state, an official said.

The state government will provide the hospital infrastructure including grants for free beds while the private entity will run the college, state Health Minister Surya Kanta Mishra said here Friday.

“This has been proposed to bring down the investment requirement on the part of the private players and make the whole proposition more attractive to the private sector,” Mishra said while speaking at the fourth CII Health Care East programme.

He said the government needed to play a pro-active role in improving the state’s healthcare services.

Ruing that enough land was not available in and around Kolkata for big medical projects, the minister urged the private sector to spread out to the districts in a bigger way.

The state’s ruling Left Front has beefed up its initiative to revive the ailing health sector following its string of electoral setbacks over the past one and half years. The shortcomings in the health sector has been a favourite campaign point of the opposition in the state.