The Uttarakhand Government has decided to transfer State medical faculty, State nursing council, paramedical council and medical council from the State Health Department to Medical Education Department. A decision in this regard was taken in a meeting chaired by Chief Secretary at State secretariat on Wednesday. Similarly, the five Auxiliary Nursing Midwifery (ANM) centres functioning hitherto under the health department would also be shifted under the Medical Education Department.

The CS also took a meeting of the empowered committee set up to provide No Objection Certificates (NOC) to private nursing institutes. Taking into consideration the convenience of these institutes the CS suggested that applications in this regard should be submitted once a year only. At present applications for opening the nursing colleges and increase in seats are invited twice a year.

It was also suggested that for all practical purposes, the physical inspection of should be done before the start of the admission process. It was also decided to merge the State College of Nursing and State School of Nursing.

 Expressing concern on absence of private nursing institutes in the mountainous districts of the State, the CS said that a proposal to attract investors for opening institutes in mountainous areas should be prepared. Interestingly, all the 25 nursing institutes in the State are presently operational in only four districts located in the plains. Singh suggested that in order to provide employment to the nursing students a process of campus selection should be employed.

 For inculcating skills in the nursing students it was decided that the practical training to the students should be provided at all three government medical colleges.

The meeting was attended by the Secretary Health, N K Jha, Additional Secretary Pankaj Kumar Pandey, Chandresh Kumar, Director General (DG) health Dr Archana Srivastava, director Medical education Dr Ashutosh Sayana and Medical Superintendent (MS) of Doon hospital Dr K K Tamta.