2 medical colleges get MCI nod in Gujarat; 300 MBBS seats from this year

Ahmedabad: In a bonanza to Gujarat's UG Medical pool, the Medical Council of India (MCI) has recently given its nod to two medical colleges to offer MBBS course with a total of 300 seats from this academic year of 2019-20.

According to recent media reports, the apex medical regulator has permitted the Nootan Medical College and Research Centre, Visnagar and Dharamsinh Desai Institute of Medical College, Nadiad with 150 MBBS seats each to operate from 2019-2020.

While Dharamsinh Desai Institute of Medical College attached with Dharamsinh Desai University (DDU) received MCI approval last week, Nootan Medical College and Research Centre which runs under the Sankalchand Patel University received the nod on April 26th, 2019.

Up till now, there were around 4,150 seats in 25 medical colleges across Gujarat; but with the announcement of Nadiad and Visnagar medical colleges being permitted by MCI, the state's MBBS pool has been increased by 300 making it the total of 4,450 seats.

It is being anticipated that the two more medical colleges which were previously inspected by the MCI are likely to get a positive response which will expectantly increase the pool by more 300 MBBS seats.

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Confirming the information to DNA, State Education Minister Nitin Patel stated, "Both the colleges are greenfield projects. Each college will have an intake of 150 students and hospitals will have 300 beds each," said Patel.

This has resulted in an increase in the total number of medical seats in Gujarat for 2019-20 admissions to 4,450 seats, the Minister said in a press release.

He further informed that inspection of two new medical colleges at Amreli and Ahmedabad has been completed and soon these projects will also get a nod.

In December last year, Medical Dialogues had reported about the MCI inspection of the new medical colleges in Gujarat, including the two at Dharamsinh Desai University (DDU) in Nadiad and Sankalchand Patel University at Visnagar.

At that time, the MCI had also inspected Chandkheda, Amreli and Ahmedabad based medical institutes.

Read Also: MCI inspections for MBBS courses in Gujarat

It has been reported that the two medical colleges with 300-bed capacity each would now be available to the public.

As per the rules stipulated by the MCI, a medical college with 100 seats mandatorily should have a functional teaching hospital with a capacity of at least 300 beds, with 60% occupancy during the time of submission of an application to the apex medical regulator. The 60% bed occupancy is required to be maintained at the time of the annual renewal the next year. The bed strength has to increase to 500, with a minimum 75% occupancy, at the time of the second renewal.

Read Also: Only Medical colleges with three year functioning hospitals to be permitted by MCI: Report

The fees for these two self-financed colleges have not been decided yet. "The fees will be decided by the Fee Regulatory Committee, which is headed by a retired high court judge, once the colleges apply for it," Deputy Director of Medical Education Dr Raghav Dixit informed the Indian Express.

Under the new health policy, the state government offers greenfield medical colleges annual financial assistance of Rs 15 lakh per MBBS student for five years.

The state government aims at doubling the number of medical seats by the year 2022 and reducing the doctor-patient ratio by half, adds the daily.