JOIN USThe State government will run two ESIC medical colleges in Bengaluru and Kalaburagi, provided the Centre continues to bear the majority ratio of operation and recurring costs.
Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru on Friday, Minister of State for Labour, Parameshwar Naik, said the State represented by Minister of State for Medical Education, Sharanprakash Patil, and himself, had held talks with the Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) Director General Anil Kumar recently. “We have told the ESIC that the State government will run the medical colleges provided the present formula that the Centre provides 87.5 per cent of the grants for running the colleges is continued,” Naik said.
The State is awaiting a response from the Centre in this regard.
The issue would be taken up with Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya during his visit to New Delhi next week.
The annual recurring expenditure per college is around Rs 150 crore to Rs 200 crore.The then Union Labour Minister Mallikarjuna Kharge, during the UPA rule, had announced the upgrading of the two ESI hospitals in Bengaluru and Kalaburagi as medical colleges.
However, the NDA government in November last year wrote to the State government to take over the two colleges stating that the ESIC was withdrawing from the medical education sector.
The students of the ESI medical college in Bengaluru had recently staged a protest over uncertainity on who would be running the college the next academic year.