Healthcare, edu boost for Assam in second year of pandemic – Times of India

For both critical care and medical education, the year was remarkable. Assam hogged the limelight as it emerged as the top state, which had made the maximum improvement among larger states in overall performance and is also among the top three most improved states in incremental performance as per NITI Aayog’s health index for 2019-20, which was released this week. Further, Assam achieved the feat of third best performing state in non-communicable disease and common cancer screening among northeast, hilly and tribal states.

The year 2021 was a landmark year in augmenting critical care facilities. Since the PM Cares Fund was launched last year, the Centre dispatched a total of 967 BEL ventilators to Assam and most of these were installed this year. The state government also accelerated its plan to construct 1,000 Paediatric Intensive Care Units (PICU), out of which the minimum goal was 10 in each district.

The number of MBBS seats in state medical colleges has gone up to 1,100 after the National Medical Commission (NMC) approved 100 seats for the newly built Lakhimpur Medical College, the eighth medical college of the state. Medical education got a major boost in Assam when the MBBS course was officially inaugurated at the Diphu Medical College (DMC) in Karbi Anglong in February, taking the total number of MBBS seats in the state to 1,000.

Nevertheless, the state had to struggle with Covid cases, which almost doubled in just nine months, if compared to the entire one year from March 31, 2020 to March 31, 2021. However, the fighback continues amid Omicron scare, though the recovery rate has touched 98.7%. A total of 5,057 people have died of Covid in the second wave so far, whereas over 4.02 lakh cases have been reported.

Assam crossed the initial target of vaccinating 2.13 crore people of the state with the first dose. On the whole, Assam achieved the landmark of administering three crore vaccinations for Covid-19.

The education sector remained affected by the pandemic throughout the year. Physical board exams were cancelled and thousands of students faced great difficulty studying in the online mode. But it readied the students to face new challenges.

A whopping 30% upsurge was recorded in the Class X state board exam results. The overall pass percentage this year has been 93.10 in the High School Leaving Certificate exam, the best ever results in Seba’s history. The Class XII board results also yielded an extraordinary pass percentage of over 99 in three streams on formula based evaluation.

Students of IIT Guwahati have beaten all odds amid the pandemic with three students getting domestic offers of above Rs 1.1 crore in campus placement this month. IIT Guwahati was placed in the top-10 of NIRF rankings again this year. The Assam education department announced the name of Olympic bronze medallist boxer, Lovlina Borgohain, as its brand ambassador to promote Samagra Siksha activities in the state.