Vikas Vaidya

By Vikas Vaidya Bringing check on the admissions made by private medical colleges through the quota exclusively reserved for Non-Resident Indians (NRI), the regulator Medical Council of India (MCI) has made Entrance Test mandatory for these admissions. It is well known secret that NRI quota was the biggest earning source for private medical colleges. This test is made mandatory from the academic year 2015-16. All admissions in NRI category now will be made through a Common Entrance Test (CET) and from a merit list drawn from the CET so as to rule out all wrong practices and eliminate middle-men from the process.  This will be a big setback to all private medical colleges in the country as they charge 1.5 times of the fees fixed by the authorities (In Maharashtra Fee Fixation Committee is the authority). So far these colleges admitted NRI category students without conducting CET. Now they can not admit students in NRI category unless they conduct CET and furnish details to admi...

By Vikas Vaidya Medical Council of India (MCI) has once again reduced the intake of Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Hospital (IGGMCH) by 50 seats for next academic year citing some minor deficiencies. This has been happening for past one decade as the Medical Education Department, rarely bothered to honour its own commitment given to MCI and to the High Court. Applying far stricter yardsticks to this government college, the regulatory body has decided to discontinue 50 additional seats sanctioned two years ago purely on ad-hoc basis. MCI has recommended to Central Government not to renew the permission for admission of 3rd batch of MBBS students against the increased intake from 100 to 150 for the academic year 2015-16. These 50 additional seats were sanctioned, only after a bitter legal fight wherein High Court and later Supreme Court sanctioned the additional intake for this government run medical college. During last one and half years, substantial progress has been ma...

By Vikas Vaidya In a major setback to proposed Government Medical Colleges at Chandrapur and Gondia, the regulating body-Medical Council of India- has returned the applications seeking permission to open these two institutions, citing numerous deficiencies. MCI has also recommended Union Health Ministry not to approve the scheme for the academic year 2015-16. Both the colleges were expected to have intake of 100 undergraduate seats (MBBS) each.  This has come as a big shock for both the districts as the political bigwigs have made it a prestige point. For Chandrapur, former MP Naresh Pugalia pursued the matter and his son Rahul had even filed a PIL while for Gondia, Congress MLA Gopaldas Agrawal passionately followed the matter. The MCI had already recommended reduced intake for Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Hospital (IGGMCH) from 150 to 100 seats and thus the region had already lost 50 MBBS seats. These 50 additional seats were sanctioned as one time measure by Uni...