In Uttarakhand, students protest as government hands over new medical college to private trust

In 2020, the Uttarakhand government allotted land for a new medical college in Haridwar – and began inviting applications from undergraduate students four years later.

The first batch of 100 students began their undergraduate medical education late in 2024.

But in less than six months, the state government declared that it is privatising the college, leading to protests from students and Opposition parties.

This is the first time, perhaps, that a newly constructed medical college is being transferred to a private party.

Until now, state governments like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have offered to hand over the management of district hospitals to private players. In return, the private companies construct medical colleges.

Students are demanding that the decision be rolled back, anxious that a fee increase will follow and that they will end up with a private degree, not a government one.

On January 13, Congress workers staged a protest outside the medical college, which has an attached hospital with 250 beds. “This is nothing but corruption,” said Ganesh Godiyal, a senior party leader. “It seems as if the medical college was built to benefit a private organisation.”

Godiyal said the land on which the college is built belongs to the municipal corporation and the construction cost qa Rs 638 crore. “If it was an old college with high overhead expenditures that the government could not afford, privatisation would make sense,” Godiyal said. “But this is a new college built with tax-payer money.”

A private player

On January 1, the state government issued a letter of intent to Sharada Educational Trust, proposing to hand the medical college to it. Scroll has seen a copy of the letter. According to the terms set out in the letter, the trust will pay the government Rs 2.5 crore every year for the medical college and its 250 beds.

Godiyal said the government stands to lose more in this deal. The trust will earn “much much more” by charging patients, he said. “The cost of land itself is huge,” Godiyal said. “The trust will get it all for free.”
Amulya Nidhi, attached with Jan Swasthya Abhiyaan, an umbrella group of charitable health organisations in India, said medical students who took the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test to get admission into a government college have been fooled by the Uttarakhand government.

“The land, resources and construction is from public money,” Nidhi said. “This is a complete handover to a private player. How will this benefit public health?”

Students have paid Rs 1.7 lakh for the first year in the college. The cost of a year of medical education in a private college fee would range between Rs 3 lakh and Rs 10 lakh.

Uttarakhand Medical education director Dr Ashutosh Sayana told Scroll that the project “is not finalised yet”. “Sharada Trust runs hospitals.” he said. “The PPP [public-private-partnership] mode is to improve services.”

Sayana added that students have been assured that the fees would remain the same and no hike would be observed after the hospital is handed over. They would get either a government degree or a degree affiliated with the state government university.

Officials from the state cited the issue of a huge vacancy in medical colleges forcing the government to seek private partners. According to a report in The Times of India, four medical colleges in the state have 58% vacancies in faculty positions.

A failed option?

Health activists argued that the Uttarakhand government is choosing an option that has not worked before.

A year ago, the state government was forced to withdraw several of its hospitals and health centres from the public-private-partnership mode after residents complained about their operations.

“Multiple hospitals and community health centres in the state have been given to private organisations in the past,” said Ishwar Joshi, an activist with Lok Prabandh Vikas Sanstha, an NGO that works in the fields of health, environment and forest rights. “And they have failed to succeed.”

In 2015, Joshi had protested against the state government’s plan to privatise Almora’s district hospital, which led to withdrawal of the proposed project.

Past failed attempts

In 2012, Uttarakhand framed a policy on public private partnership to include urban development, energy, tourism, agriculture, industry, education and health under the ambit of private players.
According to the Uttarakhand PPP cell, the state has so far had 43 projects in this mode in the health sector. Of these currently only six are up and running, while 22 were either cancelled or terminated by the government.

The functional ones include emergency ambulance services, nephrology centres, cardiac care units and primary health centres.

In 2017, under a project of the World Bank, the state government had transferred nine government hospitals, including its district hospitals, in Tehri, Pauri and Nainital to private players.

It was a decision that had to be rolled back.

In 2024, the district hospital in Tehri Garhwal and two government hospitals in Bilkeshwar and Devprayag were taken over by the state government after lapses in services. By December, the state government announced it will withdraw all hospitals from private organisations and trusts.

The Uttarakhand chief minister also issued a warning to private players over complaints by local residents of poor services in centres working on PPP mode.

Almora-based Joshi said two common issues have been reported from all these projects – an increase in referral rate and lack of services. “The private organisation would refer patients to their own hospital,” Joshi said. “Poor patients had to pay for treatment.”

In addition to this, the state government has terminated multiple health projects given to private players. This includes community health centres in Chaukhutiya, Lohaghat, Bazpur, Sahiya, Raipur, Naugaun, and Thatyur, data from the state PPP cell shows.

Haridwar Medical college row

Despite past failures, the government has gone ahead with the decision to privatise Haridwar Government Medical College. Protesting students said they were not informed of this plan at the time of admission.

On January 13, the students agreed to resume classes after the principal assured them that the fees would remain at par with other government colleges but the agitation against privatisation continues.

“For now, the students have agreed to attend classes,” principal Dr Rangeel Singh Raina told Scroll, adding that the finer details of privatisation are not known to him.

Dr Ankur Joshi, an associate professor in the dental department of Haridwar Government Medical college, said there is no clarity on whether they will be transferred elsewhere once the college is taken over by a private player.

“For now, we are still holding lectures,” Joshi said. “Some students are attending it.”

More plans of PPP

According to the state PPP cell, the government also plans to hand over medical colleges in Kotdwar and Roorkee to private players on a built-operate-transfer basis. This is a conventional PPP model in which the private partner will design and construct a facility and charge user fees for operations for a specified period and then hand over the facility back to the government.

Sayana said apart from the government medical college in Haridwar, more medical colleges and hospitals are in the pipeline for PPP mode.

Asked about the failure of district hospitals under PPP, he said, “Those were smaller health centres and district hospitals. We are creating a revised plan for larger hospitals and medical colleges. This will improve services.”