Siddhartha likely to become campus college of NTRUHS

Health varsity has no campus college

The Siddhartha Medical College (SMC) here is likely to be developed as the ‘campus college’ of Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences (NTRUHS) post-bifurcation. NTRUHS which, for the time being has jurisdiction over medical and dental colleges in Telangana also, has no campus college.

The government is therefore giving the idea of converting SMC into campus college of NTRUHS a serious consideration, according to reliable sources.

Situated in about 60 acres near NTRUHS in the city, SMC has been under the administrative control of the Directorate of Medical Education of A.P for the last 15 years and admissions are made under the State quota to 100 MBBS and 58 P.G seats.

It is trying for an additional intake of 50 MBBS seats, for which the Medical Council of India has conducted inspections a few weeks ago.

At this juncture, the proposal for making SMC the campus college of NTRUHS has come up.

According to an official of NTRUHS, the proposal will eventually get the government’s nod as the NTRUHS is not in a position to construct a new college, recruit faculty and provide other facilities partly due to financial constraints.

A new NTRUHS will require at least 10 acres, which is not available under the present circumstances. This is a basic hurdle for it (NTRUHS) to have its campus college.

Given the situation, the government has given the proposal a serious thought so much that Special Chief Secretary (medical and health) of Government of A.P, L.V. Subrahmanyam, had during his recent visit to the city, held deliberations on it with NTRUHS authorities and other officials concerned.

It is pertinent to mention here that NTRUHS is still the apex institution for medical education in both A.P and Telangana as per the NTR University of Health Sciences Act (Telangana Adaptation) Order, 2014. Its newly-formed counterpart Dr. Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences is coming up in Warangal.

“The Minister (Kamineni Srinivas) has raised the issue a couple of times but nothing has yet fructified,” said SMC Principal Shashank.