KALABURAGI ; A team of Medical Council of India might visit the proposed Bowring Medical College for inspection at any time, said Minister for Medical Education Sharanaprakash Patil.Sharanaprakash Patil told reporters that the government sent the proposal of establishing Bowring Medical College at Bengaluru and sought approval of MCI. The MCI sought some clarification from the government few weeks back and necessary clarification has been given to MCI. It may send the team for inspection to the proposed Bowring Medical College at any time, he said.
Answering a question, Patil said that the government has dropped the proposal of establishing six more government medical colleges (at Yadgir, Bagalkot, Chikkaballapaur, Chikkamagaluru, Haveri and Chitradurga) from the year 2018-19 as the Finance Department has not given clearance so far. Medical Education Department is pursuing the matter with Finance Department. The proposal of starting these new medical colleges may materialize in 2019-2020, he said. The minister further said that a team of MCI recently inspected Madikeri Institute of Medical Sciences and Chamarajnagar Institute of Medical Sciences which were started in the academic year 2016-17 to verify the infrastructure facilities available in those colleges.
Sharanaprakash said that last year the government increased intake capacity of Raichur Institute of Medical Sciences, Bidar Institute of Medical Institute, Mandya Institute of Medical Sciences, Hassan Institute of Medical Sciences, Belgaum Institute of Medical Sciences and Shivamogga Institute of Medical Sciences from 100 seats to 150 seats and the intake capacity of Karnataka Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) from 150 to 200 after approval from MCI. The MCI team may visit these colleges to inspect infrastructure facilities, he said.
The minister said that in the last four years, the government has established eight new government medical colleges with 800 seats and increased 50 seats each in seven medical colleges taking the strength of medical seats to 1,150. If the MCI gives approval to Bowring Medical college this year, the strength of medical seats in government quota increases to 1,250. Poor and rural students would be benefitted from this, he said.
To another question, Sharanaprakash said that government is making efforts to vacate stay on compulsory rural service to the new medical graduates /post graduates who wants to serve in Karnataka. If the stay is vacated, there would be no shortage of doctors in government hospitals in the state, he said.