Bhopal, Jan 11 (IANS): All Hindi medium textbooks for MBBS course in Madhya Pradesh would be available soon as the translation from English to Hindi would be completed by the end of this month, Deputy Chief Minister Rajendra Shukla told IANS on Thursday.

Bhopal, Jan 11 (IANS) All Hindi medium textbooks for MBBS course in Madhya Pradesh would be available soon as the translation from English to Hindi would be completed by the end of this month, Deputy Chief Minister Rajendra Shukla told IANS on Thursday.

Shukla, who is the health and medical education minister in Chief Minister Mohan Yadav’s cabinet, made this statement after reviewing the progress of Hindi medium MBBS course at Bhopal’s Gandhi Medical College (GMC). Notably, MBBS course in Hindi medium -- a first of its kind of pilot project -- was introduced jointly by the Centre and the state government at GMC in 2022.

Bhopal’s GMC, the state’s biggest medical institution, has a war room named ‘Mandhar’, which was set up in 2022, and around 100 doctors with different specialties have been working in preparing the Hindi textbooks.

The minister informed that three textbooks for Hindi medium students enrolled in first year have already been translated from English to Hindi and the books have been provided to the students pursuing MBBS in Hindi medium. He claimed around 10 per cent of the MBBS students have opted Hindi medium at GMC.

“Three translated (in Hindi) textbooks -- Biochemistry, Anatomy, and Medical Physiology, as of now are available for first year students. A total of 13 books of 12 subjects would be translated, nine of them have been completed and remaining four subjects would be completed by the end of January,” Shukla said after his first review meeting on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the minister also directed the officials and doctors associated with the project to prepare exams papers in Hindi medium also. “Initiating MBBS courses in Hindi medium is a revolutionary step taken by the Centre government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Also, it’s a golden opportunity for Madhya Pradesh to make the project a success,” Shukla added.

Notably, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ruled Madhya Pradesh has introduced the MBBS course in Hindi -- a first for any state in the country, claiming the step to be revolutionary and pioneering.

The promotion of Hindi through its wider use has been a programme under the BJP government at the Centre as well as in Madhya Pradesh. The New Education Policy-2020 (NEP-2020) lays emphasis on the use of the mother tongue in imparting education.

The three textbooks -- Biochemistry, Anatomy, and Medical Physiology -- that were translated from English to Hindi by three different writers -- were released in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah on October 16, 2023.