After many a slip between the cup and the lip in the last two years, Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) has finally received approval for a dental college today from the Union Health Ministry.
RIMS Director Bl Sherwal said on Friday that the college will start Bachelor of Dental Surgery (BDS) course from this year itself, starting from September, with 50 seats.
“We were struggling to get dental course started in our already built dental college in RIMS premises. Finally, we got the approval today from the Union Health Ministry. We have already recruited 21 faculties for the course which is sufficient enough to start with and is in accordance with the Medical Council of India (MCI) guidelines. We are sure of taking this faculty strength to 60 within four years before first batch of 50 BDS students to be enrolled this year is awarded degrees,” said Sherwal.
He added that all necessary infrastructures, including building and equipments have already been set up before commencement of the course. “Against requirement of 50 for 50 students, we have installed 70 dental chairs in the college where nine departments of dental surgery will come into operation. We are pretty sure of recruiting at least 50 non-teaching staff before classes come into effect this year. To sum up, necessary infrastructures and human resource are not an issue now at all to start the course,” added Sherwal.
Notably, MCI team had come for inspection in RIMS during December last year to see whether required numbers in terms of teaching and non-teaching staff, infrastructure and other things were in place or not before it could nod for the course. “The team had put some observations and reservations before us to get the required numbers in place. We worked on those numbers, and thanks to our visionary Chief Minister who always took healthcare as one of the foremost sectors to take care of, Health Minister who never hesitated to provide whatever we required and our new Additional Chief Secretary who believed in speedy trial of files, we were able to overcome issues raised by MCI team and get the course started this very year,” added Sherwal.
Dental College Principal Pankaj Goyal said on the occasion that the college will also apply for Master of Dental Surgery (MDS) course soon, with a target of starting the course most probably from next year itself. “We are working on that. We are also working on getting BDS seats increased to at least 100 soon,” said Pankaj.