Foundation stone laid for ESIC Medical Education Complex at Gulbarga

Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today laid the foundation stone of a Medical Eduation Complex being set up by the Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) at Gulbarga in Karnataka.

Speaking on the occasion, he said the Government was setting up a National Social Security Fund for unorganised workers with an initial allocation of Rs 1000 crores on a proposal by the Union Ministry of Labour & Employment.

The fund will support schemes of weavers, toddy tappers, rickshaw pullers, beedi workers and others, he said. Union Minister of Labour and Employment Mallikarjun Kharge presided over the function.

Mr Mukherjee said the Centre had mandated the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) to create 500 million skilled persons by 2022.

He appreciated the efforts of the ESIC in the field of medical skill development by setting up medical colleges, dental colleges, nursing institutions and so on, apart from providing core social security benefits to the workers in the organised sector.

Mr Kharge said the plan to build ESIC medical colleges would help provide better health care for insured persons and also give the country more doctors.

The Gulbarga complex is being constructed on a 30.4 acre plot at a cost of Rs. 790 crores. The complex will house an ESIC medical college, a dental college and a nursing college as well as a 500 bedded super specialty hospital.

The medical college will have 100 MBBS seats, the dental college 50 BDS seats and the Nursing College will have an intake of 40 students annually.

According to an official press release, the medical college and hospital will have state-of-the-art facilities comparable to any other similar complex in the country.

The hospital building will have eight floors and the medical college six floors. The hospital will have 12 types of ultra-modern wards, including ICUs and ICCUs. There will be super specialty facilities related to neurolog, cardiology and so on.

The release said there would be 12 operation theatres, including two emergency operation theatres and two maternity operation theatres.

The complex will also have an auditorium, hostels for students, accommodation for faculty members, a community centre and a guest house for patients' relatives.

NNN