Bengaluru, Feb 18 Karnataka's senior Congress leader D.K. Shivakumar has urged Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa to set up a medical college in his Kanakapura Assembly segment.
"Shivakumar met Yediyurappa in the latter's office this afternoon and urged him to withdraw the cancellation order and restore the allotment letter to open a medical college at Kanakapura in Bengaluru Rural district," Shivakumar's spokesman S. Kiran told here.
Though the Congress troubleshooter wrote to the chief minister on December 7, 2019 when he learnt that the allotment by the previous JD-S-Congress coalition government was cancelled by the BJP government, he requested Yediyurappa to even lay the foundation stone (bhoomi puja) for the medical college in his home constituency.
"I have no objection if a medical college is built at Chikkaballapur but request you to permit me to open a medical college in my constituency to fulfill the promise I made to the electorate before the 2018 Assembly elections," Shivakumar said in the letter to the chief minister.
Kanakapura is 50 kms southwest of Bengaluru and Chikkaballapur 60 kms northeast of Bengaluru.
On the advice of the central government, the Union health ministry and the Medical Council of India have permitted Karnataka to open state-run medical colleges in each of the 30 districts across the southern state to improve the doctor-patient ratio and overcome the shortage of doctors in towns.
Yediyurappa said recently that his government plans to have one medical college with a hospital in each district.
( With inputs from IANS )