Feb 28 2017 : The Times of India (Chennai) 74 PG med seats to go waste this year Ekatha Ann Chennai:   Annamalai Univ Seats Still Derecognised Tamil Nadu government's effort to boost the number of post graduate programmes for medicine may suffer a setback with the Medical Council of India yet to renew the recognition of 74 PG seats of in Rajah Muthiah Medical College attached to Annamalai University .The PG programmes in six departments, including paediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology and orthpedics, were derecognised by MCI in June 2016 on grounds of low patient footfall, discrepancies in appointments and promotions of faculty and poor infrastructure.The college will not be allowed to admit new PG students in the upcoming academic year until the MCI gives them the green signal. Faculty and students in the college say the campus has been ailing for long despite coming under the state government's control in 2013. “ Although the government took charge of the university , it still functions as a self-financed institute,“ said a PG student of the medical college at Chidambaram on conditions of anonymity . He said the number of out-patients had gone below 50%, the faculty rarely attended classes and the infrastructure fell short of the norms set by MCI. He was among other PG students, parents and doctors' association members who held a meeting in Chennai on Monday to discuss ways to give their college a leg-up. The MCI had cancelled the permission granted to anaesthesiology department after an inspection team found the equipment to be “old and inadequate“. It derecognised the PG programmes in the paediatrics, orthopaedics and radiodiagnosis after finding discrepancies in appointment of faculty members and their promotions. They also cited the lack of publication of research papers. The anaesthesiology department, for example, hadn't published a single paper in three years. One of the demands that constantly cropped up in the meeting was to bring the college, which currently has around 750 MBBS students, under Tamil Nadu Dr M G R Medical University .“At least then, the government will share it resources, including faculty and infrastructure, with the college,“ said B Kamaraj, a parent whose son is a third-year MBBS student at Rajah Muthiah College. While the university charges `5.45lakh per year as tuition fee for MBBS, the fee in government medical college is `15,600.“And the infrastructure is far inferior. This is the price students who get admission on merit pay ,“ said Kamaraj. Although repeated calls by TOI to the university's registrar went unanswered, officials in the education department said they had sought renewal of recognition with the MCI. Sources in the MCI say the permission is unlikely to be granted if the college doesn't put its act together. An official in the state department of health and family welfare said discussion has been underway for long to bring the college under the directorate of medical education. “But there are too many legal and financial issues to be addressed before we make a move,“ he said.