India needs 600 medical colleges, 50 AIIMS-like institutions, says Nitin Gadkari

The country needs at least 600 medical colleges, 50 AIIMS-like institutions and 200 super-specialty hospitals, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said on Saturday as he called for the need to replicate the infrastructure development sector's public-private partnership model in the health care and education sectors.

The Road Transport and Highways Minister was speaking at the felicitation of COVID-19 warriors in Karad city of Maharashtra's Satara district.

He said the cooperative sector should also come forward to set up medical facilities.

"Once during a discussion with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, I told him about the scarcity of ventilators. He asked me how many ventilators were there in the country, to which I replied there must be around 2.5 lakh. But he told me that there were only 13,000 ventilators when the coronavirus pandemic broke out in the country," Mr. Gadkari said.