There are 14 ESI hospitals in West Bengal and this will be the first time when two of these will be converted into medical college cum hospital.

“We have a shortage of nearly 6 lakh doctors and 10 lakh paramedical staff in the country. To meet the demand, we have decided to start our own medical college,” said a senior officer of the ESI Corporation.

In the first phase, we aim to set up 15 medical colleges across the country and later a college in each state,” added the officer. The cost of setting up the colleges is estimated to be Rs 500 crore.

Besides the above two medical colleges, there are also plans of introducing PG courses in two ESI hospitals in Maniktala and Joka from 2010-11.

To meet the shortage of doctors working in the ESI hospitals, the corporation will make it mandatory for the medical students to work in hospitals for five years after the completion of their course.

While 40 per cent seats in medical colleges will be reserved for students from Bengal, 40 per cent will be kept for students across the country.

The remaining 20 per cent will be broken into 3 categories — 10 per cent for children of insured persons, 5 per cent for children of the staff implementing the ESIC scheme and the rest 5 per cent for children of employees.

Trilochan Singh, Principal Secretary, State Labour and Employment department, said: “We hope the new colleges will meet the vacancies of doctors. The ESI hospitals are also tying up with super-specialty clinics to improve their infrastructure and provide quality health-care to common people at minimal cost.”

There are plans to tie up with city-based hospitals like Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences and AMRI for these specialised treatments.

AR Bardhan, Director (MB) Scheme, ESIC Bengal, told about the plans of setting up a new dispensary in Haldia.

“We are looking for land and talking to the Haldia Development Authority. We are trying to reach