The Madhya Pradesh cabinet on Monday approved a proposal to facilitate the availability of government district hospitals to investors who want to establish medical colleges under the public-private partnership (PPP) model.
This will reduce the investment cost and the investor will only need to build the medical college and not a hospital along with it, state Urban Development Minister Kailash Vijayvargiya said.
A hospital is needed for a medical college and the state government has such facilities (hospitals) in every district, he said.
The decision was taken in the cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Mohan Yadav, he said.
Government will provide land at the collector guideline rates to investors
For the establishment of medical colleges under the PPP model, the government will provide land at the collector guideline rates to investors, he said.
It is considered that establishing a hospital and the medical college together cost around Rs 500 crore to the investors, the minister said.
"The government will give the district hospital to the investor in a bid to reduce the investment cost. So, the investor doesn't need to construct a hospital and will only need to build the medical college," he said.
The condition laid in this model is that the investor will pay salaries of the district hospital staffers, Vijayvargiya said.
When the medical college and hospital start running together, then 75 per cent of the beds will need to be provided only to the poor and the investor can use the remaining 25 per cent commercially, he said.
Scheme will be implemented in the districts without medical colleges
"This is a very important decision and it will strengthen the medical infrastructure and improve facilities. We discussed this issue for about an hour," the minister said, adding the government wants medical colleges in every district.
This scheme will be implemented in the districts where medical colleges are not there at present, he said.
The cabinet also took several other decisions, including implementation of the Centre's Smart City 2.0 scheme.
Under the scheme, two-three cities of the state will be selected and an amount of about Rs 135 crore will be allocated to these cities for the improvement of environment, the minister said.