Manik Saha opens Rs 8.44 crore nursing campus in Agartala's Durjoynagar
Tripura's chief minister brought a nursing college, a nursing school and an ANM institute under one roof, and also laid the foundation for a new Narsingar health centre.
Tripura Chief Minister Manik Saha on October 28 inaugurated a new three-storey building in Agartala's Durjoynagar that now houses the Government Nursing College, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar Nursing School and the ANM Training Institute. The building cost Rs 8 crore 44 lakh. At the same event, Saha laid the foundation stone for a new building for the Narsingar Primary Health Centre.
The practical gain is consolidation: three nursing and midwifery training institutions that train frontline health workers now share a single campus. For a state where primary health centres and district hospitals depend on trained nurses and auxiliary midwives, that is a quiet but meaningful step in building the workforce behind the hospital beds.
Saha described health services as a basic need and said a healthy population makes for a healthier society. He said the government wants to deliver public health services to children, the elderly and economically weaker sections in remote areas as much as in cities, and is upgrading primary health centres in far-flung areas with that aim.
He also pointed to what he called a sweeping change in the health system. According to the chief minister, bed capacity in district hospitals has risen significantly, and outpatient services have been widened across facilities from the main referral hospital to district and sub-divisional hospitals. These figures were offered in his speech and were not accompanied by specific numbers.
On medical education, Saha said nursing education has been expanded and that 550 MBBS seats have been added in the state across government and private institutions. He also listed new or planned dental, eye, homoeopathic and Ayurvedic colleges and hospitals, and the modernisation of the main referral hospitals. He said the government is completing works transparently and within stipulated timelines, and that the Narsingar health centre building would be built quickly.
Present at the event were Health Department Secretary Kiran Gitte, Acting Sabhadhipati of Paschim Tripura Zilla Parishad Bishwajit Shil, former MLAs Dr. Dilip Das and Krishnadhan Das, Health Director Dr. Debashree Debbarma and West Tripura District Magistrate Dr. Vishal Kumar.
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