Telangana Government's Investment in Medical Education to Boost Doctor Numbers

HYDERABAD: The state government spends Rs 30 lakh on each MBBS student before he or she leaves the college with a degree, Rs 45 lakh on each postgraduate student, and Rs 75 lakh on each medical student pursuing a superspecialty, health minister T. Harish Rao informed the Assembly on Saturday. He said Telangana will soon be the number one state in terms of number of doctors. He said the state had 22 MBBS students for every one lakh population; with 8 PG medical students Telangana stood second on this count.

Palm oil cultivation is on the upswing and, on an average, a farmer planning to take up cultivation of palm oil trees receives inputs and subsidies totalling Rs 50,918 per acre, agriculture minister Singireddy Niranjan Reddy informed the Assembly. This includes inputs for inter-crop for the second, third and fourth year after planting as harvesting of palm oil plants starts around the fourth year.

The state government borrowed Rs 27,838.45 crore from ten banks for the Mission Bhagiratha piped drinking water scheme. Of this, Rs 6,939.46 crore has been paid back, panchayat raj minister Errabelli Dayakar Rao told the Assembly. The banks that provided the loans are Hudco, Nabard, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Canara Bank, ICICI, Punjab & Sind Bank, Punjab National Bank consortium, UCO and Union Bank of India, he said.

The length of the roads damaged during the recent rains and floods was 2,373.30 km, which will require Rs 71.26 crore to take up temporary repairs, panchayat raj minister Errabelli Dayakar Rao said. There is an additional requirement of Rs 837.56 crore for permanent repairs. He said 1,568 roads had breached.