By Our Correspondent | NEW DELHI:
Even as the central government has approved setting up a medical college in Tura under the Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS), academicians and experts from India’s health sector have suggested that such medical colleges should have a provision of 50 per cent seat reservation for the local population.
“It’s a good decision to set up medical colleges and hospitals across India with many of them in India’s northeastern states. However, I feel that there should be 50 per cent seat reservation for local medical aspirants at least in the Northeastern States,” said Dr RV Ashokan, former secretary-general of Indian Medical Association (IMA) to The Meghalayan on March 13.
The statement given by Dr Ashokan assumes much significance against the backdrop of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine crisis where several Indian medical aspirants with many of them from Meghalaya left their study midway and returned home.
As per an estimate, nearly thousands of students from Meghalaya prefer to go abroad to pursue their careers with many of them opting for the medical line.
“Scarcity of seats in government medical colleges and high fee structures in private medical colleges in India compelled students to opt for medical study abroad,” said Dr Giridhar Gyani, director general of Association of Health Care Provider- India (AHCP-I). Â
Significantly, aware of the shortage of medical colleges and hospitals in several states across India, the central government has approved to establish new medical colleges attached with existing district and referral hospitals with one sanctioned for Tura in West Garo Hills.
Tura is being selected with 57 other medical colleges to be set up under phase I of the Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS).
The Meghalaya government has recently announced scrapping the Shillong Medical College (SMC) project and instead decided to move with a new proposal besides expediting the construction work of the Tura Medical College.
Similar medical colleges have also been proposed for other northeastern states with one at Naharlagun in Arunachal Pradesh, four in Assam (Dhubri, Nagaon, North Lakhimpur, Diphu), one each in Mizoram (Falkawn) and Nagaland (Kohima).
A senior official in the Union Health Ministry said that under the CSS scheme, 157 new medical colleges have been approved in three phases and 70 are already functional.
One medical college has been approved for Sikkim (Gangtok) under phase II whereas one medical college each has been approved for Assam (Kokrajhar), Manipur (Churachandpur) and Nagaland (Mon) in phase III.
As per health ministry statistics, there are 596 medical colleges across India at present with 88,120 medical seats. Estimate says near about 18 lakh medical aspirants appear for the NEET examination every year.Â
As informed by the National Medical College (NMC), 132 medical colleges in the government sector and 77 medical colleges in the private sector have been approved in the country since 2014. The numbers of UG seats have increased by 72 per cent from 51,348 before 2014 to 88,120 seats as of the date and the numbers of PG seats have increased by 78 per cent from 31,185 seats before 2014 to 55,595 seats including (Diplomate of National Board) DNB and CPS (College of Physicians and Surgeons) seats.