Colleges push for admitting students

TIMES OF INDIA

Medical Council of India rules need a new medical college to show it has good enough infrastructure for first year MBBS students' requirements and an undertaking that the rest will be put in place.

MCI assessors inspect a new college every year for five years and issue permission for each year. When they fail to stick to their commitments, the regulator cracks down and doesn't allow further intake. This often works to the advantage students, although after a legal battle.

"College managements constantly hustle the authorities to give them permission to start taking in students even when there is almost no infrastructure. With political connections (most trusts are either run by politicians or their family members), they manage to get permission," said a medical college professor.

Every year, MCI decides that several colleges, which had received conditional approval and admitted students, are "not approved/permitted for intake" as the institutions do not have infrastructure. Following this, dozens of cases are filed in high courts and the Supreme Court by the management of these colleges and by students or their parents. In 2015, 27 colleges with 3,650 seats were not allowed to admit students.

Of the 10 private medical colleges started in 2014, six (accounting for 900 seats) were not allowed to admit students in 2015. So, what happens to the 900 students admitted in 2014 after paying lakhs as capitation fee? "When denied permission, college managements tell students and their parents to go to court and seek relief if they don't want their investment to go to waste," explained a lawyer.