A group of people under the aegis of the Wayanad Government Medical College Action Committee took out a protest march and staged a dharna in front of the Wayanad Collectorate here on Thursday raising a slew of demands, including the setting up of the proposed government medical college at Madakkimala in the district.
Inaugurating the march, action committee chairman E.P. Phlipkutty said the government had announced, around 20 years ago, that five medical colleges would be set up in the State, including one in Wayanad.
The institutions in other districts were set up in a time-bound manner, but nothing has been done in the case of Wayanad, he said.
The Chandra Prabha Charitable Trust here had donated 50 acres at Madakkimala in Kottathara village for setting up the medical college, but the government is interested in establishing it at Boys Town on the Wayanad-Kannur border, nearly 40-km away from the proposed site. Mr. Phlipkutty alleged that it was to protect the vested interests of a private medical college lobby.
If the government goes ahead with the project at Boys Town, a highly ecologically fragile area, the organisation will intensify protest, he warned.
