TEAM HERALD
MARGAO: Saying that the BJP government should squarely take the blame for the reduction in the medical seats from 150 to 100 from the coming academic year, Congress MLA Reginaldo Lourenco on Tuesday said the people of Goa have now realised that they were foxed by the king fox on a host of issues before running away to Delhi.
Addressing the media, he said the Congress in 2011 had taken up steps to increase MBBS seats from 100 to 150 by giving an undertaking to the Medical Council of India that all the qualifying norms including infrastructure (lecture/theatre/auditorium with a capacity of 500 students) and faculty will be in place. Accordingly, GSIDC was entrusted with the construction work which was to be completed in time, he said.
Reginaldo said the Congress government had acted and had moved the files, got staff promoted and after verifying the norms, the MCI approved 150 seats. “The BJP government, which came to power in March 2012, was a beneficiary of the Congress initiative and the first batch of 150 students commenced in June 2012. BJP had played no role then but our ex-CM Parrikar, whom the Supreme Court reprimanded as ‘infantile wisdom’ took credit for the same”, he said.
He pointed out that work on the two buildings and other infrastructure have been dragging on since the last three years, adding that the BJP has failed miserably on the promises given to MCI. “The payment to contractors has stopped since the funds were diverted to less important works including Mayawati like Lion statues in Ponda. There is absolutely no priority for development works under BJP government. No wonder Supreme Court described it of having “depraved sense of egocentric knowledge” in the NEET case. There are also several vacancies for faculty in surgery, orthopaedics and medicine”, he said adding “The result: MCI reduced the seats from 150 to 100 again from the coming academic year. BJP government has failed and has inflicted tremendous harm on the people of Goa”.
The Curtorim MLA has appealed to the CM to give higher salaries to all the resident doctors, senior consultants and specialists. “If the CM says that the state is financially sound then there ought to be no delay in completing GMC infrastructure”, he said, saying that Goa should not suffer the great loss.
