Plan to add 695 MBBS seats

The Bengal government today announced its intention to add 695 MBBS seats to nine state-run medical colleges.

The proposed increase works out to 63 per cent, the largest single mark-up till now. The nine government medical colleges at present offer 1,110 undergraduate seats. Around 45,000 students appear for the medical joint entrance every year.

“The total cost (of increasing the seats), including expenditure on infrastructure, will be worked out after the Medical Council of India (MCI) issues a notification. The ministry of health has promised to provide financial assistance,” health minister Surjya Kanta Mishra told the Assembly.

It is not clear if the MCI will approve such a huge increase at one go. It may allow a phase-by-phase increase, a source in the council said.

MCI regulations demand that colleges increase infrastructure (staff strength, number of beds and laboratory facilities) in proportion to hikes in their number of seats.

Colleges have been granted a one-time permission to increase postgraduate seats this year. The Centre is hoping that 10,000 more postgraduate seats will be added across the country over two years.

However, to increase undergraduate medical seats, colleges have to apply to the MCI through the government. The MCI sends an inspection team to each college. The process usually takes a year.

The MCI had sent teams to all the colleges in Bengal at different times. But whether the visits were related to the seat increase or were routine annual inspections is not clear.

The government usually does not announce such decisions in the Assembly before getting the final approval.

According to Mishra, a central team had said Bengal needed at least 19 medical colleges. A 100-seat medical college in Kalyani will open its doors this year, he added.

Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100318/jsp/frontpage/story_12230394.jsp