Chairman of Darjeeling Society for Education, Research and Development (DSERD), Dr GS Yonzone, former principal of Kalimpong College, has written to chief minister Mamata Banerjee demanding that the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital (NBMC&H) should be renamed after Dr Mani Kumar Chhetri (in photo).

Dr Yonzone has also written a similar letter to the Governor of West Bengal Dr CV Ananda Bose and sought renaming of the NBMC&H. According to Dr Yonzone, the region’s premier health institute should be renamed after Dr Mani Kumar Chhetri in appreciation of the valuable services rendered by Dr Chhetri throughout his life to the state of West Bengal and the people of the state. Notably, Dr Chhetri was also the personal physician of former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu.

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Dr Chhetri also played a key role in establishing the North Bengal College and Hospital in the 1960s for the benefit of all the people of North Bengal. Dr Chhetri was born on 23 May 1920 in Teesta Valley in Darjeeling. Presently living in Kolkata, he is a cardiologist and is the former director of the West Bengal State Health Services. In 1974, the Government of India honored Dr Chhetri with the Padma Shree.

In his letter sent on 17 February, Dr Yonzone has said that the people of Darjeeling hills have played an important role in uplifting the image of Bengal by working shoulder to shoulder with freedom fighters, educationists, scientists, artists, athletes, educationists and social activists. “One of our most outstanding national heroes from the Darjeeling hill region has been Professor Dr Mani Kumar Chhetri, now 104 years old, but still actively engaged in promoting health services.

He made Kolkata his lifelong place of work, though he was born in the Teesta Valley Tea garden of Darjeeling,” Dr Yonzone says. “As a distinguished medical physician, and equally distinguished teacher, research guide and medical scientist, Dr Chhetri headed all the highest level Government Medical Institutions of the State of West Bengal continuously for over three decades and became successful in giving new live and vigour as well as direction to these institutions while earning great name and fame for the government and for himself in the process,” he adds in the letter. “We would most earnestly request that the Government of West Bengal be pleased to rename the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital as Dr Mani Kumar Chhetri Medical College and Hospital as a mark of honour and appreciation to the great contributions that Dr Chhetri has made to consistently uphold the cause of medicine and health services in the state of West Bengal for over four decades,” the letter says.