Hyderabad, Oct 23 (IANS): Eight medical colleges will become operational in Telangana from academic year 2022-23, state minister for health and finance T. Harish Rao said on Sunday.

One of these medical colleges has come up in tribal area Kothagudem in Bhadradri Kothagudem district.

The minister said that despite the Centre's discrimination towards Telangana, Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao took the historic initiative to set up one medical college each in all 33 district.

Harish Rao pointed out that in the last seven decades only five medical colleges were set up in Telangana but in the last eight years after formation of Telangana, 12 new medical colleges were sanctioned. Sixteen new medical colleges are being set up, making it one medical college per district.

The minister claimed that Telangana made several representations to the Centre for medical colleges but not a single medical college was sanctioned.

He said while Telangana was not sanctioned even one medical college, Uttar Pradesh got as many as 27 new medical colleges and Madhya Pradesh got 19 colleges. He pointed out that a total of 157 medical colleges were sanctioned in all the states.

Telangana's minister for industry and information technology K. T. Rama Rao and union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya were recently engaged in a war of words over the medical colleges issue.

After Rama Rao stated that the BJP-led government did not sanction a single medical college to Telangana, Mandaviya claimed that the state government did not submit any proposal for medical colleges.

However, KTR, as the minister is popularly known, had disputed the central minister's claim. He said the state health minister had consistently requested for medical colleges.