The Northeast on Wednesday got its first homegrown private medical college with the inauguration of the Shija Academy of Health Sciences at Langol in Manipur’s Imphal West district.

Manipur chief minister N. Biren Singh, who inaugurated the institute, said the “first ever homegrown private medical college in the Northeast” will be very beneficial to cater to the increasing number of medical aspirants in the states.

Shija Hospitals chairman-cum-managing director Dr Palin Khundongbam told The Telegraph that it was a wholly funded venture of the hospital and also the “biggest” private sector investment in the Northeast. Shija Hospitals has “invested” Rs 350 crore in the project.

Palin said there are two private medical colleges in the Northeast, one in Sikkim and another in Tripura.

“But these were set up by private parties from outside these states. Ours is fully home grown venture in the sense that we are from the state and we started our clinic in the state, in 1985,” Palin said, adding the Tripura medical college is now being run by a government trust.

The Shija Hospitals-sponsored medical college’s intake of 150 MBBS seats in the first year is also the highest in the state with 63 seats reserved for the state, 64 for the Shija management and 23 for NRIs.

Admission to the Shija Academy of Health Sciences will be done “purely on merit” through the NEET (UG).

“We are hoping classes will start from January-February,” Palin said.

Hailing the contribution of Shija Hospitals towards providing quality healthcare, chief minister Singh said since the government alone can’t meet all the needs of the people there was a need to encourage public private partnership (PPP) projects in every sector and that the BJP-led state government was “ever ready” to extend all possible co-operations to private companies in all their endeavours.

Manipur works minister Th. Biswajit said the establishment of a private medical college would prove to be a boon to the state because a huge number of students pursue medical courses outside the state.

Of the over 4000 medical aspirants in Manipur, only about 150 students are selected as government nominees and over 400 go outside the state and country for private medical studies per year.

It is estimated that about 700 medical students from Manipur are studying in China only at present, Palin said.

About 50,000 patients also go “outside” the state for treatment every year with two-three attendants who are educated or employed “leading” to huge manhour loss apart from the inconveniences due to language, culture and alien environment and prohibitive cost.

“The commissioning of the private medical college at juncture is timely and will help the state save money and improve the economy because healthcare and education are major drain on the region in the northeast and Manipur in particular,” Palin said.