Centre rolled out slew of schemes to ramp up medical infra in TS: Kishan

Hyderabad: Union Tourism Minister G Kishan Reddy on Wednesday said that the Centre has taken up many initiatives for the development of medical infrastructure in Telangana including setting up of All-India institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at Bibinagar at a cost of Rs 1,028 crore.

He said the government sanctioned Rs 1,032 crore for the construction of a new OPD block and advanced medical facilities at ESIC Hospital, Sanathnagar, Rs 240 crore for the new blocks and advanced medical facilities in the government hospitals in Adilabad, Warangal, establishment of 4,549 health and wellness centres in rural areas and 'Basti Davakhanas' in urban areas across the State under the Ayushman Bharat scheme at a cost of Rs. 902 crore. The government also sanctioned Rs 30 crore for establishment of a regional centre of the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) for the southern region.

Reddy said in the wake of shortage of oxygen during Covid, the government set up 50 plants across the State with funding from PMCARES. For the construction of 31.2 lakh toilets across the State the government provided Rs 3,744 crore under the Swachh Bharat programme.

The minister alleged that there was no response from Telangana on setting up of medical colleges in every district when two former Union ministers of health had written to the State. Recently, in the Rajya Sabha, the Ministry of Health provided information on the large increase of MBBS and PG seats across the country over the last eight years. While there were 51,348 MBBS seats available in the country in 2014 it was significantly increased by approximately 90 per cent to 96,077 in 2022-2023. Similarly, the medical PG seats were increased by 105 per cent from 31,185 in 2014 to 64,059 by 2022-23. Similarly, the number of medical colleges in the country were increased from 387 in 2014 to 648 by 2022.The number of AIIMS has also seen increased from seven in 2014 to 22 by 2022. An additional nine AIIMS will be available by 2024-25

During the last eight and a half years, the Centre had taken several measures towards strengthening medical infrastructure in the country. It brought in transformational change in all the sectors related to health and has been determined to provide state-of-the-art quality medical facilities to people at affordable prices. Reddy said the Modi government would continue to work towards the development of infrastructure in the health sector in Telangana through various such measures.