New Delhi, 11 January, 2022: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set to inaugurate 11 new government medical colleges in Tamil Nadu through video conferencing tomorrow, that is, 12 January, 2022. The inauguration event will be in line with the aim to promote affordable medical education and enhance health infrastructure in all parts of the country. Simultaneously, a new campus of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT) is also being built in Chennai.
New Medical Colleges: Details
- These new medical colleges will be constructed keeping in mind an estimated cost of about INR 4,000 crore and will have a cumulative capacity of 1450 seats.
- Out of these INR 4,000, around INR 2,145 crore has been provided by the Union government and rest has been provided by the Tamil Nadu government.
- The districts where new medical colleges will be established are Virudhunagar, Namakkal, The Nilgiris, Tiruppur, Thiruvallur, Nagapattinam, Dindigul, Kallakurichi, Ariyalur, Ramanathapuram and Krishnagiri.
Note: The new medical colleges are being established under the centrally-sponsored scheme of ‘Establishing of New Medical Colleges attached with existing district/referral hospitals’. Under the scheme, the major focus is to build medical colleges in districts wherein there is an absence of a government or private medical college.
Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT): Details
Alongside the 11 medical colleges, a new campus of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT) in Chennai is also being built at a cost INR 24 crore. It is an autonomous organisation under the Union Ministry of Education.
- CICT will be equipped with a spacious library, an e-library, seminar hall, and a multimedia hall.
- The CICT library has a rich collection of over 45,000 ancient Tamil Books.
- It contributes to the promotion of classical Tamil by indulging in research activities to establish the ancientness and uniqueness of the language.
- It also aims to translate and publish ‘Thirukkural’ in various Indian as well as 100 foreign languages.
