KCR to inaugurate Telangana's 8 new medical colleges on Tuesday

HYDERABAD: Telangana will be ushering a new era in medical education as classes are set to commence in eight new medical colleges that will be formally inaugurated by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao on Tuesday.

The KCR-led Telangana government has created history by establishing the eight new medical colleges at Kothagudem, Nagarkurnool, Mahabubabad, Sangareddy, Ramagundam, Vanaparthi, Jagityal and Mancherial, with 1,150 MBBS seats in each institute. KCR will mark the historic occasion by virtually inaugurating the new medical colleges from Pragati Bhavan in Hyderabad.

According to statistics, Telangana only had 850 MBBS seats in government colleges till 2014 and the number was later enhanced to 2,815 after KCR assumed charge as Chief Minister after state formation. This was made possible by setting up 12 new medical colleges including four with one each at Nalgonda, Suryapet, Siddipet, and Mahbubnagar. The officials claim that the government had created a record by opening 12 new medical colleges in these eight years.

The TRS party has taken the BJP-led NDA government to task, saying that the latter had not sanctioned a single college despite establishing 157 colleges across the country. Meanwhile, Health and Medical Minister Harish Rao has been appealing to the Centre to cooperate in setting up new colleges.

Going by the details of the number of colleges and seats, Telangana has 15 private medical colleges and five government colleges with 2,100 seats and 850 seats respectively. However, under the leadership of KCR, there are 17 government medical colleges and 24 private colleges in the state with 2,815 MBBS seats in government, and 3,800 seats in private sector. While coming to PG medical seats, the number of seats have been increased from 1,130 in 2014 to 2,463 in 2022 and the same for nursing colleges increased from 79 to 92.