Facility hurdles stop GMCD from admitting MBBS students

GUWAHATI, June 12: The Government Medical College, Diphu (GMCD) had applied to the Centre to allow it to give admission from the 2018-19 academic session despite the fact that only around 80 per cent construction was completed. Not a single faculty was appointed, besides the principal for the college.

Such things have come to the light after the Union Health Ministry recently rejected the proposal of starting the new GMCD on the basis of recommendations from the Medical Council of India (MCI), the apex regulatory body for medical education that assesses whether the medical colleges across the country have the required infrastructure, faculty and number of patients. The GMCD is one of the 68 medical colleges across the country that the Union health ministry has disapproved. Sources said the GMCD had hoped that adequate infrastructure and manpower will be ready by the time the first batch of students takes admission into the college. The medical college has 100 seats. A full-fledged medical college requires 1,260 staff, from the professor to the watchman.

The medical college was mooted under the Centre's scheme of transforming civil hospitals into medical colleges. Since Diphu civil hospital did not have enough land to upgrade it into a medical college, the GMCD has been set up independently. Assam has now six medical colleges---Gauhati Medical College & Hospital, Assam Medical College & Hospital, Dibrugarh, Silchar Medical College & Hospital, Jorhat Medical College & Hospital, Tezpur Medical College & Hospital and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed Medical College & Hospital, Barpeta. The total number of MBBS seats in these medical colleges stands at 726. The development has come as a setback for Dispur’s ambitious scheme to set up more medical colleges in the State to produce more doctors. Sources said infrastructure of the GMCD will be ready by April 2019. So the GMCD is hopeful of giving admission to the 2019-20 batch of students.