Health Minister of Jharkhand Rajendra Prasad Singh on Monday advocated reconsideration of the Medical Council of India’s diktat to Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) to slash additional seats. In a meeting with Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan on Monday, Singh urged the Union Minister to rethink the decision which will have direct impact on students who have already taken admission in the State-run institution.
“Irrespective of the report a student must not suffer. They have taken admission through entrance examination conducted by central government organizations. They should not have taken examination in the first place,” said Singh.
The Health Minister of Jharkhand put forward a strong case against the MCI order for trimming strength in the first year of MBBS and handed over documents corroborating the claim that the council overlooked infrastructure works done at the premier institution in Ranchi. Singh also advocated a high-level inquiry of all medical institutions of Jharkhand to confirm the claims of State based medical institutions fulfilling criteria for increasing strength of students. Union Health Minister reportedly assured Singh to look into the matter with compassion.
“I have given him (Harsh Vardhan) all documents related to works done at three medical institutions. And I have also said that they can have this verified through fresh inspections,” said Singh adding, “he (Harsh Vardhan) said that he shares our concern and assured that he is with us on the matter”.
Singh was accompanied by Director RIMS SK Chaudhary, officials of State health department and MCI’s representative in Jharkhand.
Chaudhary accepted that the institution is facing dearth of faculty but doesn’t deems it to be a reason enough to orders reduction in the number of seats.”These were issues from a very longtime. But I would not comment until any fresh development is made on seat row,” maintained Chaudhary.
Meanwhile, students of RIMS derided high handedness of MCI and the process of inspection which made it incumbent upon the institution to reduce the seats to 90. The institution has increased number of seats to 150 in 2011 and has been on the radar of MCI since then due to gaps in the facilities needed if a medical college moves ahead with increasing seats in the college.
“There are constraints like we do not have enough space in library and we require more faculties to teach additional students but all these are achievable. But seats should not be reduced as Jharkhand is
facing huge crisis of doctors,” said a final-year student of MBBS at RIMS, Jitendra Kumar Singh.
The MCI’s team had visited RIMS last year to inspect institutions capability to accommodate additional 60 students. The report had led to wide spread criticism of the MCI as the order to decrease strength would imply that students will have to forfeit admission for no fault.
“What is their (fresh students) faultIJ The seat was increased in 2011 and the report has come three years later. This is injustice to those who attended the counseling and were waiting for the session to start. Now they have nowhere to go,” said a first year student Vidyacharan.