A team of Army Medical Corps (AMC) visited the Veer Chandra Singh Garhwali Government Medical College, Srinagar, Garhwal on Sunday and inspected the facilities. The visit of the team follows the proposal by the State Government in which it had invited the Army to charge of operation of the medical college.
The four member team of AMC, headed by General Officer Commanding (GOC) in Chief of Central Command of AMC, Major General D S Bhakuni arrived in the college on Sunday morning. The team of MCI was accompanied by the Principal of the medical college, Dr CMS Rawat and Director Medical Education, Dr Ashutosh Sayana.
The team visited the College and associated hospital to cross check the facts mentioned in the status report submitted by the department. The team checked facts like land, built-up area, infrastructural facilities, patient load, number of faculty members, their salaries, qualification and equipment. The team is on two day visit and based on its report the army would check the offer of the state government and feasibility of operating the medical college.
The director Medical Education, Dr Ashutosh Sayana said that he had submitted a detailed report about the college to the AMC recently.
The State Government had recently offered the operation of Government Medical Colleges of Srinagar and Almora to the Army Medical Corps (AMC). The Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat held a meeting with Army Chief General Bipin Rawat in New Delhi where the issue was discussed. Following the meeting the medical education department submitted a status report to the AMC. It is learnt that the State Government has offered AMC that in lieu of handing the operation of these medical colleges it can reserve some seats for the children of armed forces personnel.
The decision to hand over the operation of these medical colleges is important as the State Government has failed in its efforts to bring in required number of faculty members in the Sri Nagar medical college while paucity of funds has affected the pace of construction of Almora Medical College. The Srinagar medical college was given permission to start MBBS classes in the year 2008. The college at present has a sanctioned capacity of 100 MBBS seats and 04 Post Graduate seats. The college has seen as many as nine Principals in last nine years while 80 percent posts of residents and 28 percent faculty positions are vacant.
The construction work in the proposed Almora medical college is affected by fund crunch. Only 35 percent work of the medical college is complete yet although the work in going on from last four years.