Bhubaneswar: The state government on Friday admitted that shortage of doctors had hit the health care system and there were no doctors at 156 rural health centres, 30 of which are in chief minister Naveen Patnaik's home district Ganjam.

Of the 6,536 doctors required to run the government health care system, 3,119 posts are lying vacant.

Health minister Pratap Jena on Friday told the Assembly: "Such a situation has arisen not because of paucity of funds, but due to lack of adequate number of doctors."

He said the government was trying to tackle the situation by opening more medical colleges and recruiting more doctors. Jena said that efforts were on to attract doctors working outside the state.

The state has three medical college and hospitals, 32 district hospitals, 22 sub-divisional hospitals, 1,279 primary health centres and 231 community health centres in the rural areas.

The minister said the state government had decided to set up nine more medical colleges. "Two medical colleges have already started functioning at Koraput and Baripada," he said.

Without naming the BJP, he said: "Last year, there was a conspiracy to deny the Medical Council of India's permission to the Baripada medical college. However, we approached the Supreme Court and obtained the necessary permission to open it."

BJP leader K.V. Singh Deo said: "The state government is trying to appropriate the credit of opening new medical colleges. But five such colleges have been set up under the centrally-sponsored scheme. The state government could not set up these colleges within the stipulated timeframe and keeps blaming the Centre for the failure."

Congress leader Narasingha Mishra flayed the government's failure to set up three medical colleges with financial support of Western Odisha Development Council.

Mishra said: "Besides, the UPA government had sanctioned five medical colleges with 75 per cent funding from the Centre. Why did the government miss the 2016 deadline?" He sought to know whether the state government's proposed nine medical colleges included these five.