Bengaluru: The Karnataka government has described as regressive the National Medical Commission’s (NMC) new norm which mandates permission for new colleges only in accordance with the ratio of 100 seats per 10 lakh population.
“This is a regressive step and will affect medical education in the state. The government has plans for more institutions. We do not know the reasons they are assigning for this move. How will they assess the population when there has been no recent census? The stakeholders weren’t consulted about this. We will write to the NMC that this is not acceptable and is not in consonance with our future plans,” said Sharan Prakash Patil, minister for medical education. The state has decided to write to NMC, expressing its opposition to the new norm.
A gazette notification from the NMC, dated August 16, prescribes the minimum requirements for a medical college in terms of accommodation, staff and equipment. Applicable to institutions that will be established from 2024-25 onwards, the notification states that permission cannot be in excess of 150 MBBS seats “provided that medical college shall follow the ratio of 100 MBBS seats for 10 lakh population in the state”.
If that is the case, many districts of Karnataka will not be able to start a new medical college. This comes at a time when the government has ambitious plans of starting one medical college in every district.
At a meeting of the governing council of the government medical colleges of the state at Vidhana Soudha on Wednesday, the issue was discussed. “The plan is to start new medical colleges in districts and have more government seats to benefit the common man. We’re looking at having more seats for the poor meritorious students, and increasing services to common man as we will always have compulsory service too. We also don’t have equal distribution of doctors in urban and rural areas, with the latter lacking accessibility to healthcare. The NMC has also not mentioned the reasons for this decision. We will therefore be writing to them soon,” said Sujatha Rathod, director of medical education.At 70, Karnataka has the second-highest number of medical colleges in the country. Tamil Nadu has the highest (74). Uttar Pradesh has 68 and Maharashtra 67. The total count of medical colleges in the country is 704. Karnataka has about 11,745 seats. As per officials, on average, the NMC gets applications for about 60 colleges every year and of them about 10 are from southern states.
However, some experts welcomed the move. “Karnataka has around 70 colleges now. It’s time that the government looked at improving the standards of the existing medical colleges rather than building newer ones,” said one.
