GUWAHATI, June 16 � The Barpeta Medical College has received approval of the Medical Council of India (MCI), making it the State�s fifth medical college.
Informing this to the media, Education and Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma today said that the State Government 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 Barpeta Medical College � named after former President and a prominent leader of the State, Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed � will have a yearly intake of a hundred students, making the total annual intake of the five colleges to 620 � the break-up being 100 each for Silchar, Jorhat and Barpeta, and 150 for Guwahati and 170 for Dibrugarh.
�The five colleges will help maintain the necessary ratio of doctors for the State. Three hundred students are pursuing MBBS at the Jorhat Medical College with the first batch set to be out in 2015, while over a hundred will get admission this year,� Sarma said, adding that admission to the 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. �Ground works like land acquisition have already started. An amount of Rs 250 crore is being spent on each of the new medical colleges,� Sarma said, adding that Nagaon and Karimganj were in line for the next medical colleges.
