In line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s objective of providing affordable medical education and health infrastructure across the country, he will inaugurate 11 medical colleges in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday.

With the opening of new medical colleges, there will be an increase of 1450 seats MBBS.

The Prime Minister Office informed here that Modi would inaugurate 11 new government Medical Colleges across Tamil Nadu and also the new campus of Central Institute of Classical Tamil in Chennai at 4 pm via video conferencing.

The new medical colleges are being established at an estimated cost of about Rs 4000 crore. Around Rs, 2145 crore has been provided by the Union government and the rest by the Tamil Nadu government.

The medical colleges are being established in the districts of  Virudhunagar, Namakkal, The Nilgiris, Tiruppur, Thiruvallur, Nagapattinam, Dindigul, Kallakurichi, Ariyalur, Ramanathapuram, and Krishnagiri.

The new medical colleges, with a cumulative capacity of 1450 seats, are being established under the Centrally Sponsored scheme of ‘Establishing of New Medical Colleges attached with existing district/referral hospital’. Under the scheme, medical colleges are established in districts, which do not have either a government or private medical college, the PMO said.

The establishment of a new campus of the Central Institute of Classical Tamil (CICT) in Chennai is in line with Modi’s vision to protect and preserve Indian heritage and promote classical languages.

The new campus is fully funded by the central government and is being built at a cost of Rs 24 Crore. CICT, which was operating from a rented building so far, will now operate from a new 3 storey campus. The new campus is equipped with a spacious library, an e-library, seminar halls, and a multimedia hall, the PMO note further said.

An autonomous organization under the Union Ministry of Education, CICT is contributing to the promotion of classical Tamil by doing research activities so as to establish the ancientness and uniqueness of the Tamil language. The institute library has a rich collection of over 45,000 ancient Tamil Books.

To promote classical Tamil and support its students, the Institute indulges in academic activities like holding seminars and training programmes, granting fellowship etc.

It also aims to translate and publish ‘Thirukkural’ in various Indian as well as 100 foreign languages. The new campus will provide an efficient working environment for the institute in its pursuit of promoting classical Tamil across the world, the Prime Minister Office stated.