Ahmedabad civic body-run medical college named after PM Narendra Modi

A medical college run by an education trust of the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) was on Thursday, September 15, named after Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Medical Education Trust (MET) runs the college in Ahmedabad's Maninagar area. "Now, the AMC MET Medical College, which runs from the campus of AMC-run LG Hospital in Maninagar area, will be known as Narendra Modi Medical College,” announced Hitesh Barot, Chairman of the municipal corporation's standing committee, as stated in a report by PTI.

A proposal to christen the medical college after Modi was unanimously passed in a standing committee meeting held on Thursday, he said. The college was built when Modi was Gujarat’s Chief Minister, Barot said.

"Since this medical college was built during PM Modi's tenure as Gujarat Chief Minister, everyone was of the opinion that it should be named after Narendrabhai so that people remember his contribution. That is the least we can do for a person who did so much for the state and the city," he said, as per PTI. 

Details about the college

According to the AMC standing committee chairman, nearly 300 medical students take admission in this college every year in undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The educational institute is affiliated to the AMC-run LG Hospital which has 1,050 beds.

The college, founded in 2009 when Modi was Gujarat’s Chief Minister, is one of the three medical colleges run by the AMC MET in the city.

Two others are NHL Municipal Medical College and AMC Dental College. "It was Modi's vision to strengthen medical education in the state by building colleges so that the state gets more doctors to serve people. The AMC has named the college after Modiji as a tribute to his vision," said Barot, who is also a member of MET, as per PTI. 

It was Barot who had first floated the idea of renaming the college during MET's executive committee meeting held on Wednesday, September 14. The trust accepted Barot's proposal and submitted the same for consideration during Thursday's standing committee meeting as an "urgent matter".

The proposal was unanimously passed during the meeting, he said. To recall, in 2021, the Gujarat Cricket Association had named the newly built cricket stadium in the Motera area of the city after the Prime Minister, a move which had triggered a controversy.