Cuttack: In a major boost to the State’s health sector, Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi today announced that four new Medical Colleges and Hospitals (MCHs) will be set up in the State soon.
While addressing at the Ayushman Bharat launching ceremony here, the Chief Minister said, “Our government is giving emphasis to open medical college in each district of Odisha. At present we have 12 medical colleges in the State while two new medical colleges will start functioning soon.”
In this year’s budget, provision of funds has been made to set up new medical colleges at Bhadrak, Jagatsinghpur, Nabarangpur and Dhenkanal districts along with four dentist colleges, he announced.
New medical colleges will be set up in the remaining districts in a phased manner, he said.
Terming today as a historic day for Odisha, Shri Majhi said three health assurance schemes have been launched today.
“Due to political reasons, the previous government did not implement the Ayushman Bharat scheme in Odisha for six years. After the new government formed in the State, the scheme has been launched,” the CM said.
The migrated Odia people who are deprived of the scheme, will not be able to get the benefit of free treatment, he said, adding, “This is a double engine government’s model to double the pace of development.”
Another scheme ‘Ayushman Vaya-Vandana Yojana’ has also been launched in Odisha today for all persons aged 70 years and above, irrespective of their economic status, Shri Majhi said.
Each beneficiary will get one card each so that each member of a family can avail the benefit in and outside Odisha at once, he added.
After installation of double engine government, Odisha is getting benefit of several welfare schemes and measures of the Modi government
Lakhs of students of Odisha were deprived of getting benefit of National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 as the previous BJD government did not implemented it for political reason. But, the new BJP government implemented the NEP-2020 in the State, he pointed out.
“Healthy people form a strong nation. After our government came to power, we are filling up the vacancies in the public healthcare facilities. Today our government completes 10 months and during this period, we have filled up 4000 posts including doctors in the healthcare facilities,” he said.
Majhi said 5,374 doctors and dentists will be recruited very soon.