After Telangana Minister KT Rama Rao claimed that PM Modi had not approved any medical colleges for the Telangana state, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya responded on Monday that the state has never formally submitted a proposal for the establishment of new medical colleges in a series of Twitter banter between the two leaders.
Minister KTR, in a series of tweets on Sunday, said that the chief minister had sanctioned 16 new medical colleges, and 13 more are in the pipeline.
"Now, let me tell you how many medical colleges our PM Modi Ji sanctioned to Telangana — zero," said the TRS leader.
In response, Mandaviya on Monday said in a tweet, "How many proposals for medical colleges have been sent by your Telangana State Government? He further said Prime Minister Modi had sanctioned the highest number of government medical colleges in the shortest time, without partiality, to those states who made proposals."
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“Wish you had a review before you chose to respond. Attached are responses of your predecessors to the requests from Telangana Health Ministers from 2015 and 2019. Telangana Govt has consistently requested for medical colleges but fact is your Govt delivered ZERO," tweeted KTR.
In addition, in response to KTR, Mandaviya shared an earlier correspondence from his predecessor Harsh Vardhan to Telangana in August 2019, asking it to send a thorough project report on the state government's request for the conversion of district hospitals into medical colleges in two Telangana districts as per the guidelines for consideration. He also attached a reply made in Parliament in December 2021.
"With all due respect, kindly read the third para of the letter of my predecessor, and the reply recently given in the Parliament. Kindly try to understand that Centre has always requested and guided Telangana state to send a formal proposal with DPR as per scheme requirements,” Union Health Minister Mandaviya responded.