The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved setting up of 157 new nursing colleges at a cost of Rs 1,570 crore besides approving a new policy for the medical device sector.
Uttar Pradesh (27) and Rajasthan (23) will get the maximum number of such colleges followed by Madhya Pradesh (14), Tamil Nadu (11) and West Bengal (11). Karnataka will get four new nursing colleges.
The colleges would be co-located with existing medical colleges, allowing optimal utilisation of the existing infrastructure, laboratories, clinical facilities, and faculty, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said here. Each of the colleges would produce 100 nursing graduates each year.
The government plans to complete the project within the next two years for which an execution timeline has been laid out.
An Empowered Committee headed by the Union Health Secretary in the Centre and Principal Secretary, Health/Medical Education in the states will monitor the progress of the work.
The Cabinet also approved a new policy for the Medical Devices Sector, hoping that such a policy would help the sector grow from present $11 billion to $50 billion in the next five years.
The policy focuses on six strategies to tap the potential of the sector with the 'implementation of action plan'.
The six strategies planned under the policy are Regulatory Streamlining; Enabling Infrastructure; Facilitating R&D and Innovation; Attracting Investments in the Sector; Human Resources Development; and Brand Positioning and Awareness Creation.
The minister said in the globalised world there would be imports but the aim of the National Medical Devices Policy 2023 was to meet the maximum requirements from locally manufactured products.
"The policy details will hopefully help traders and importers start investing to put up factories and end the 70-80% import dependency. This will stem the ever rising import bill. Last year imports shot up by a steep 41 per cent to over Rs 63000 crore," said Rajiv Nath, Forum Coordinator of Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD) reacting to the policy.