Vijayawada: Y Satya Kumar Yadav, Minister for Health, Family Welfare and Medical Education of Andhra Pradesh has said that the construction of all 17 medical colleges taken up by the State government will be completed, and admissions will commence as planned. He said “The works of five medical colleges taken up in the first phase are progressing steadily. The government is exploring the options such as the Public Private Partnership model and the viability gap funding to advance the remaining projects.” Meanwhile, the health minister slammed former Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy for neglecting the construction of the medical colleges. He said “Jagan promised to build 17 colleges with Rs 8,500 crore, but only 25% of the works have been completed, and just Rs 1,451 crore (16% of the project cost) has been spent by the previous regime. Pulivendula Medical College has faced 48% shortage of teaching staff and 37% deficit of other staff when assessed by the National Medical Commission. The situation in the other four colleges in the second phase is worse making it impossible to begin admissions from the current academic year.”
Giving the statistics of the budgetary allocation by the centre the Health Minister revealed that the Centre has approved the sanction of Rs 90.84 crore for the development of AYUSH services in the State for the current financial year. This marks a significant increase from the allocation of Rs 38 crore between 2019 and 2024. As part of the Central support, Rs 8.50 crore will be allocated to the 50-bed AYUSH hospital in Visakhapatnam, Rs 8 crore to Kakinada hospital, and Rs 20 crore for AYUSH colleges. An additional Rs 10 crore has been requested for staff training, the Health Minister added. He said that the AYUSH fund will be used to strengthen AYUSH hospitals, complete the construction of 50-bed AYUSH facilities, renovate dispensaries, and develop government AYUSH colleges. He further said that the government plans to construct a new Ayurvedic college and a 100-bed hospital in Dharmavaram. The State has also sought sanction of additional undergraduate and postgraduate seats for Ayurvedic colleges for the forthcoming academic year.