Kolkata: The Indian Institute Of Technology-Kharagpur’s medical college is set to debut in 2020, a statement said on Thursday.

The Dr B.C. Roy Institute of Medical Science & Research is coming up in the Balarampur area adjoining the IIT-Kharagpur campus on an 18-acre plot.

The hospital will start functioning from 2018 and the MBBS programme would be launched in the following three years.

“With the first phase of construction of Dr B.C. Roy Institute of Medical Science & Research getting over by June this year, we are now working towards making the hospital operational from 2018. So that, as per regulation we can start offering MBBS programme in another three-years time,” said Sriman Kumar Bhattacharyya, Deputy Director of the institute, who is in-charge of setting up the medical college for IIT-Kharagpur.

The patients at the hospital will be able to connect to any doctor across the globe and get treated.

Bhattacharyya said: “It will be a connected hospital. We will be collating all details of the patients through videography and with their permission, we will be able to disseminate it all over the world. So if a patient wants to seek the opinion of a doctor in the US, he/she can easily do so.”

IIT-Kharagpur is ensuring that it is run on no-profit-no-loss mode.

“While offering world class facility, we will have differential pricing – subsidised rates will be on offer for the poor and the rest will have to pay non subsidised rates,” said Bhattacharyya.

As per plan, the hospital will be having 750 beds.

“The Ministry of Human Resource Development has permitted IIT-Kharagpur to start the hospital with 400 beds and has already sanctioned Rs 150 crore for the purpose. The project would cost about Rs 230 crore. We plan to raise the rest of the fund through donations,” Bhattacharyya added.

IIT-Kharagpur is also in the process of setting up a society to run the hospital and the medical college.

“As per rule, IIT’s cannot offer medical courses. So this project will work as a special purpose vehicle. We will not run it directly but would create a registered society and then IIT-Kharagpur will sign an MoU with the society so that functioning of the hospital can get along with the IIT system,” explained Bhattacharyya.

IIT-Kharagpur has been running a school of medical science and technology since 2001.

This inter-disciplinary school will help the institute and Dr B.C. Roy Institute of Medical Science & Research to put thrust on medical research with technical support.