Barpeta, Aug. 1: Classes of Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College, Barpeta, Assam’s fifth medical college, started today.
Welcoming the first batch of the medical college during a ceremony, state health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College would be one of the top-ranking medical colleges in the country by 2017 with modern facilities.
He expressed the hope that the medical college would produce some of the best doctors to serve the people of Assam.
The new medical college named after former President and a prominent leader of the state, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed, will admit 100 students in a year.
This will take the total number of students in the five medical colleges of the state annually to 620 — 100 each for Silchar, Jorhat and Barpeta, and 150 for Guwahati and 170 for Dibrugarh.
Dipur had announced three medical colleges at Jorhat, Tezpur and Barpeta in the 2005 budget, of which the two at Jorhat and Barpeta had now become functional.
“The five colleges will help maintain the necessary ratio of doctors for the state,” Sarma said,
Even though the hospital section of Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College was inaugurated on February 11, 2011, the college started functioning from July after it received the permission from the Medical Council of India.
Sarma said an MRI machine would soon be installed at the medical college to offer quality healthcare to the people of Barpeta and other parts of lower Assam.
Principal Bhabani Chakravorty said all infrastructure and other facilities like hostels were completed and the college was fully confident of running its academic activities without any hindrance. He said the college would have 22 departments.
Besides a principal, the Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College has now a vice-principal, superintendent, 29 associate professors, 50 assistant professors and 62 junior doctors along with other health workers and staff.
Sources said admission to Tezpur Medical College would start in 2014, followed by the Diphu Medical College in 2015.
In addition, Lakhimpur, Dhubri and Kokrajhar will also have a medical college each. “An amount of Rs 250 crore is being spent on each of the new medical colleges,” the source said.
