Summary
The new medical colleges, to be set up under a Centre-sponsored scheme, will offer 1,450 seats in medical courses
The new CICT campus in Chennai will contribute in preservation and promotion of the Tamil language
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will virtually inaugurate a total of 11 new medical colleges in Tamil Nadu on January 12 under a Centre-sponsored scheme aimed at setting up medical colleges attached with existing health facilities in states.
An official letter on January 10 informed that PM Modi will also inaugurate a new campus of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT) – an institute that works in the field of preserving cultural heritage and Indian languages – in Chennai on January 12.
The new medical colleges are being set up at an estimated cost of about Rs 4,000 crore and are expected to offer 1,450 seats for courses in medical science. The districts in which the new medical colleges will come up are Virudhunagar, Namakkal, The Nilgiris, Tiruppur, Thiruvallur, Nagapattinam, Dindigul, Kallakurichi, Ariyalur, Ramanathapuram and Krishnagiri.
The new medical colleges are being set up under the ’Establishing of New Medical Colleges attached with existing district/referral hospital’ scheme of the Centre. Under this scheme, medical colleges are established in districts that do not have government or private medical colleges.
The new medical colleges will increase the MBBS seats in India in line with the Union government’s endeavour to promote affordable medical education and improve health infrastructure across the country.
For this project in Tamil Nadu, about Rs 2,145 crore has been provided by the Centre. The remaining cost of setting up these medical colleges will be borne by the Tamil Nadu government.
The new CICT campus that will be inaugurated by the PM is fully funded by the Union government and is built at a cost of Rs 24 Crore. The institute was operating out of a rented building so far in the absence of a permanent campus. The new campus of CICT is equipped with a spacious library, an e-library, seminar halls and a multimedia hall.
An autonomous institute under the Union ministry of education, the CICT is contributing to the promotion of classical Tamil language by conducting research activities on the heritage and uniqueness of this language. The institute’s library has a collection of over 45,000 ancient Tamil books.
To promote classical Tamil and support its students, the institute indulges in academic activities like holding seminars and training programmes and granting fellowships. It also aims to translate and publish ‘Thirukkural’ in various Indian as well as 100 foreign languages. The new campus will provide an efficient working environment for the institute in its pursuit of promoting classical Tamil across the world.
Last updated on 10 Jan 2022
