Dhenkanal: A proposal for setting up a medical college in Dhenkanal has been decided, said Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Minister Krushna Chandra Patra here on Sunday. Talking to mediapersons, Patra said Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi has accepted the people’s demand and thus responded to his obligation to the people of Dhenkanal for a medical college as he had passed out from Dhenkanal Law College. The Odisha government will soon declare the budgetary allocation for the medical college, he said. Patra conveyed his thanks to the Chief Minister and Health Minister Mukesh Mahaling for the decision.

The medical college will start functioning from District Headquarters Hospital in one year. The district administration will sanction additional land of 20 acres near the hospital for the development of the medical campus, Patra said.

Presently, the patients here are often referred to SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack due to lack of doctors. Despite adequate infrastructure, many posts of doctors and paramedical staff are lying vacant.