New Delhi The government plans to convert existing hospitals at India’s major ports into medical colleges and super speciality centres on PPP basis, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said on Thursday.

“We will convert the existing hospitals at our ports into medical colleges and super speciality centres on a PPP basis,” shipping, road transport and highways minister Gadkari told PTI.

He said that a committee appointed by the government, headed by Medical Council of India (MCI) member Ved Prakash Mishra had submitted its report in this regard.

The seats in such medical colleges would depend on capacity, he added.

Citing an example, he said that the port hospital at Mumbai Port Trust would be converted into a 1,000-bed medical college while at some places it would be of 600 or 700 seats capacity, depending on the institute.

Gadkari said that a part of the funding would be met through the government while the rest will come from private players.

India has 12 major ports, namely Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT, Mormugao, New Mangalore, Kochi, Chennai, Ennore, V O Chidambaranar, Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia), which handle approximately 61 % of the country’s total cargo traffic.

Earlier, addressing an event at Assocham, he said the government had increased the length of National Highways from 96,000 km to 1.75 lakh km, upping its capacity to handle about 85%of the country’s total traffic.

He said the government was also focused on promoting alternative fuel to cut down on huge Rs 7 lakh crore import bills.

“We are going to bring in a policy to promote use of alternative fuel which is indigenous and pollution-free as it will help in saving lot of time, bring down logistics cost by 4 to 6%, which is currently about 14 to18% unlike in China where it is 10 to12% and in European countries where it is 12 to 14%,” he said.

[“source-hindustantimes”]