New Delhi, April 30: Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy has met Union Health Minister Dr. Mansukh Mandaviya and requested to sanction medical colleges in 12 districts at the earliest and said the state government can complete the works by December, 2023 and start admissions from the 2024 academic session.

The Chief Minister said the bifurcation of the state has deprived its residents of critical tertiary care facilities and added that one of the important aspects of access to tertiary care and creation of a pool of trained manpower is the availability of adequate number of medical colleges in public sector.

The Chief Minister said Andhra Pradesh used to have only 13 districts for a population of more than 5.4 crore and In order to make the administration more responsive and efficacious, the state government has created 13 more districts, which have started functioning from April 4, 2022.

The Chief Minister said Andhra Pradesh is having 11 medical colleges in the public sector and 3 more, one each at Paderu (Alluri Sitharama Raju district), Machilipatnam (Krishna district), Piduguralla (Palnadu district) were sanctioned by Central Government on March 20, 2020 and added the works for these 3 Colleges are in full swing. He said the state has 14 government medical colleges as against 26 districts and added that taking the new districts into account, there are 12 districts without Government Medical Colleges including Vizianagaram, Parvathipuram Manyam, Anakapalli, Konaseema, East Godavari, West Godavari, Eluru, Bapatla, Chittoor, Annamayya, Sri Satyasai and Nandyal and urged the Minister to sanction them.