India, May 3 -- When the state government announced in 2021 that a new medical college would be established at St George Hospital near Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT), it envisaged significant improvements in access to medical training and healthcare for south Mumbai residents. But four years on, the project remains stalled owing to height restrictions on buildings in the area and the lack of space for expansion within the hospital premises.

As per National Medical Council (NMC) guidelines, a postgraduate medical college must be attached to a hospital with at least 650 beds and it must have 15,000 square metres of floor space, whereas St George Hospital has 500 beds.

The shortfall can only be bridged via vertical expansion, ...