The prospects of setting up an advanced medical centre attached to the Central University of Kerala (CUK) campus at Periye here have brightened with the university deciding to join hands with a local social organisation to help build political consensus for the project.
The Kasaragod People’s Forum has been arranging a series of meetings with key political parties in the region over the last two months to achieve the much needed consensus before undertaking a visit to New Delhi to meet the Prime Minister, and senior officials of the Ministries concerned and NITI Aayog.
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“We are hoping to send an all-party delegation, including the local MP and MLAs, headed by Vice Chancellor G. Gopakumar in June after getting the consensus of local political leaders,” V. Gopinathan, retired Principal of the Government College here and an office-bearer of the forum, told
The university had prepared a Rs.1,000-crore master plan to set up the long-awaited postgraduate course and research centre in medicine, Dr. Gopakumar said.
The Vice Chancellor said he was planning to meet Revenue Minister E. Chandrasekharan, who represents the Kanhangad Assembly constituency, in Thiruvananthapuram on Monday to impress upon him the need to mobilise political consensus in the region.
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Dr. Gopakumar said he had attended a few meetings convened under the aegis of the forum in the recent past. However, some political party representatives failed to take part in the deliberations that got stalled on account of hectic campaigning for the Assembly election. He said the university had already begun a dedicated course in Master of Public Health, to provide exhaustive training to medical practitioners in areas of their choice, as a precursor to the setting up of the proposed medical centre.