Tamil Nadu Government would encourage the private sector to set up medical colleges in the state as there was a huge shortage of doctors, a top Medical Education official said today.

At present only 35,000 medical graduates passed out of the over 300 medical colleges in the country every year against the requirement of one lakh doctors per annum, state Medical Education Director Dr V Kanagasabai said.

Inaugurating a private medical college at the suburban Tiruvallur, he said the resource crunch faced by governments made it impossible to invest a huge amount for setting up government medical colleges and hence the private sector had a role to play in this.

With a huge population in the country, medical care was yet to reach rural masses and shortage of doctors was the main reason, he said.

He said the state was in favour of opening more medical colleges both in public and private sectors to overcome the shortage.

College Chairman T Deendayal Naidu said the college hospital, which had 300 beds now as per the norms of the Medical Council of India, would be developed into a 3,000 bed hospital at a cost of Rs.6,000 crore in the next five years with 141 departments, making it one of the biggest in Asia.

The college administration also proposed to set up a health city in the coming years, besides planning to open another medical college in the city.