Dissatisfied with the quality of infrastructure being offered, the Centre has this year denied renewal permission to 80 medical colleges that were offering around 10,000 MBBS seats.
Also, the Centre has created 2,360 seats by granting permission to 17 new colleges and adding 460 seats as one-time intake in six colleges. Thus, the effective loss in the number of MBBS seats this year will be of around 8,000 seats.
Every year on an average around 5,000 MBBS seats are reduced from the overall pool due to denial of renewal permission to colleges that are unable to fulfil minimum statutory requirements to run an MBBS course.
The denial means these colleges will not be able to induct students at the MBBS level due to red flags the Centre raised in their preparedness and ability to handle medical under-graduation course, which requires quality and expertise.
All these are the existing colleges that have been in operation for a while. As per MCI norms, new medical colleges approved by the government to offer MBBS courses have to undergo annual renewal process for five years since starting operations. The permission to new colleges is normally given for 100 MBBS seats. After five years, the existing college can apply for upgrade of seats from 100 to 200 and the same annual renewal process repeats for the next five years. The cumulative MBBS induction strength of the 80 colleges denied permission for 2018-19 academic session was 8,000 to 10,000 seats, Health Ministry sources today told The Tribune. “The rejection of applications means none of these 80 colleges can this year admit a fresh batch of 100 MBBS students. They will again have to apply for renewal next year and subject to fulfillment of norms they will be allowed,” a ministry source said.
A total of around 220 colleges had applied this year for renewal. In the category of new medical colleges, the Centre has allowed 17 claims out of 85 applications received for the 2018-19 session. “These 17 new colleges have 1,900 MBBS seats plus we have also added 460 seats as a one-time increase of intake in six medical colleges across the country. This means an addition of 2,360 MBBS seats this year,” a ministry source said.
So while around 10,000 MBBS seats will be lost this year due to non-renewal of permission to 80 colleges, 2,360 seats will be added by way of fresh approvals. In all, the country will have a little over 62,000 MBBS seats this year against the earlier around 70,000.
SC Notice on age limit for NEET
- The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the Centre, MCI and CBSE on petitions challenging an MCI regulation prescribing an upper age limit for those appearing for NEET
- Notified on January 22, the amended MCI regulation prescribes an upper age limit of 25 years for General Category candidates and 30 years for those belonging to the SC, ST, OBC and physically handicapped categories
- A Vacation Bench headed by Justice AK Goel agreed to examine the legal points involved and accordingly asked the Centre, MCI, CBSE and Kerala government to respond to a batch of petitions filed by medical aspirants by July 10
