Bhubaneswar, May 18: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik today visited the Pandit Raghunath Murmu Medical College and Hospital in Baripada after the Supreme Court-mandated oversight committee granted it permission on May 13 to start admission from the coming academic session.
"The people of Mayurbhanj had a long-standing dream for establishment of a medical college in Baripada. Now, that dream is going be a reality," said the chief minister. He said his government would co-operate to make the medical college an advanced institute of learning and health care.
In an attempt to strike an emotional chord with the people of Mayurbhanj, Naveen recalled the contribution of erstwhile king of Mayurbhanj Sriram Chandra Bhanjadeo in setting up the state's first medical college in Cuttack. The college has been named after him.
Competitive politics has ensued between the BJD and the BJP over the Baripada medical college. Earlier, the state government had named the college after Pandit Ragunath Murmu, who had designed the Olchiki script for the Santhals, a tribe that has a sizeable population in the region. The move followed the Narendra Modi government's appointment of Draupadi Murmu as the governor of neighbouring Jharkhand to placate the dominant tribe in the region.
The tussle intensified after the recent panchayat polls, in which the BJP swept the zila parishad elections in the tribal-dominated Mayurbhanj district. The BJP won as many as 49 seats in the 56-member zila parishad, while the BJD had to be content with only six seats. The district witnessed a strike on May 11 after it became known that the Medical Council of India did not accorded permission to start the academic session from this year.
On the same day, Union health minister J.P. Nadda had called a meeting where it was decided that a council team would visit Baripada to examine the feasibility of starting the MBBS course in the coming academic session. Union minister of state for petroleum and natural gas Dharmendra Pradhan had taken the initiative.
The state government, however, approached the apex court's panel seeking its intervention. "Though, a medical council team visited the Koraput medical college on April 11, surprisingly, no such team visited the Baripada health care facility for review of compliance, despite fulfilment of all mandatory requirements. The council's subjective decision and the reasons for not making review assessment of the Pandit Raghunath Murmu Medical College is highly undesirable," the state's health secretary P.K. Meherda said in his May 6 letter addressed to the Supreme Court's oversight committee.
During his visit to the college today, the chief minister directed the authorities to review progress of the medical college every month and asked health minister Pratap Jena to submit a report within 15 days.
