Tripura Santiniketan Medical College: CPIM, Cong demand Joint Legislative Committee
The opposition parties – CPIM and Congress – demanded formation of a Joint Legislative Committee – over the 'Tripura Santiniketan Medical College' issue as they smelt a rat.
Congress MLA Sudip Roy Barman raised the proposal for the Joint Legislative Committee to study all the relevant aspects connected to the setting up of the Tripura Santiniketan Medical College in the State.
The proposal came up during an intense discussion on a calling attention notice of Sudip Roy Barman regarding permission by the State Government to use Referral Hospital, IGM, as Teaching Hospital by Tripura Santiniketan Medical College.
In reply to the Notice, Dr Manik Saha, who also holds the Health and Education portfolios, said that Swadhin Trust, which will set up and run the Medical College, has the experience of setting up a medical college at Bolpur in West Bengal’s Birbhum district.
It is now constructing buildings on 20 acres lands at Ranir Khamar in West Tripura district to set up a 500-bed hospital along with the 150-seat medical college, where the number of beds would be increased to 1,000 in five years.
He said the trust will also set up a multi-specialty hospital soon.
According to the Chief Minister, after the visit of a team from the National Medical Commission (NMC) in June, the apex authority issued a Letter of Permission, while the Tripura University, which is a Central university, also gave Consent of Affiliation allowing the Tripura Santiniketan Medical College of the Swadhin Trust to admit 150 students from the 2024-25 academic year.
The private medical college for a certain period would use the infrastructure of Tripura's main referral hospital -- Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital -- for teaching purposes and pay Rs 10,000 fee per student to the state government, Saha told the House.
Of the 150 seats, 50 per cent would be reserved for Tripura students.
The Chief Minister also said that with the setting up of the new medical college, not only fresh investment will be ensured, but the medical services in the northeastern state would also be strengthened.
The Chief Minister also underlined several instances of using Government Hospitals by Private Medical Colleges for training purposes in the State and other States.
However, all these failed to satisfy the Opposition as they kept on doubting the credibility of the Medical College.
The opposition MLAs claimed that a key person connected to the proposed medical college, Maloy Pith, is now under CBI scanner and is close to jailed Trinamool Congress leader Anubrata Mondal.
The opposition wanted to know if the Government had made any contingency plan to run the educational activities in case CBI arrested the key person.
Dr Manik Saha said in the first half of the session that if the group setting up the institute is found to be 'tainted', the government would act accordingly.
After a heated argument, Roy Barman proposed a Joint Legislative Committee to ‘assist’ the Chief Minister in monitoring the functioning of the Medical College with ‘unreputed’ records. LoP Jitendra Choudhury supported the demand.
The Chief Minister did not comment on the formation of the JLC.In the beginning of the second half, Roy Barman demanded the Chief Minister to make a statement on the demand for JLC formation which was rejected by the Speaker. This irked the opposition MLAs who staged a walkout in protest.
(Tripura, Tripura News)
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