NTR health varsity in poor health

NTR University of Health Sciences has many firsts to its name. It was the first health university and it has even inspired states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to start their own health universities. Inspired by the varsity, the central government too floated the idea of starting Health Grants Commission on the lines of University Grants Commission to promote health education in the country by coordinating the health universities of various states. But, when it comes to infrastructure, the famed university stands at the bottom.

• Lack of space and infrastructure stunt its growth
• Now that the capital is located in the area, the varsity may get the much-needed boost
• That will be the real tribute to NTR, whose name the varsity bears

The 27-year-old varsity is still starved for infrastructure. The administrative building is housed in one of the blocks of the Government General Hospital located close to Siddhartha Medical College. There is a longstanding demand to provide a suitable site to host colleges and administrative buildings of the varsity. But it hardly left the files. Though several proposals were put before the government in the past decades, the university still remains in a single three-storeyed block.

Few years back, there were proposals to shift the varsity to Hyderabad; however, the locals fought against the move. Now that the State is bifurcated and the capital is set to come up around the city, the students and people are hoping that the government would allocate much needed space for the varsity.

It was the then chief minister NT Rama Rao who established the varsity in 1986, and in the year 1998, it was named after him. The government is mulling to pay tribute to NTR by having his statue, like that of Buddha at Tank Bund in Hyderbad, installed in the river Krishna. But nothing would be a better tribute than providing much needed site and infrastructure for the varsity that was named after him.