A medical college born of a decade-old plea is finally filling its classrooms — and Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu says the sight of children's happy faces brought it all rushing back. On Wednesday, 28 October 2026, the Chief Minister reflected on his pivotal role in securing central approval for Dr. Radhakrishnan Medical College and Hospital, Jol Sappad, an institution whose roots stretch to a 4 March 2014 sanction won through his personal appeals to the Union government.

The 2014 Plea That Set It All in Motion

Sukhu recalled approaching then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and then Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad to press the case for a medical college in Jol Sappad. That lobbying paid off when the UPA central government formally approved the institution on 4 March 2014 — part of a wider push during the UPA's final months to sanction new medical colleges in hill states where doctor shortages were acute and geography made healthcare access difficult.

The approval was one of several granted to underserved northern and hill regions during 2013–2014, designed to seed a new generation of doctors who would eventually serve the communities that trained them. For Nadaun and surrounding areas of Himachal Pradesh, the college represented a rare promise of specialist care within reach.

From Sanction to Academic Infrastructure

What gives Sukhu's reflection its particular weight today is that the story did not end with a ribbon-cutting in 2014. The Chief Minister noted that ensuring the institution now has a fully equipped academic block, library, laboratories, and essential facilities has fallen to his current administration — a continuity he described as a 'sukhad sanyog' (a happy coincidence). Twelve years separate the approval and the completion of academic infrastructure, a gap that speaks to the slow, grinding reality of building medical education capacity in hilly terrain.

What It Means for Himachal's Next Generation of Doctors

The stakes are concrete. Dr. Radhakrishnan Medical College and Hospital is expected to produce a new generation of doctors from Himachal Pradesh, reducing the state's dependence on medical graduates trained elsewhere. Residents of Nadaun and neighbouring regions stand to gain access to improved treatment facilities — a need long felt in areas where geography has historically funnelled patients toward distant urban hospitals.

With academic and laboratory infrastructure now being put in place, the next milestones to watch are the commencement of MBBS admissions and the launch of full patient services — the two markers that will convert a building into a functioning institution.