MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court recently advised the National Medical Commission (NMC) and the State Government to avoid establishing medical colleges in and around Chennai or other cities where medical colleges already exist.
A division bench of Justices, N Kirubakaran and B Pugalendhi observed, “Once a medical college is established, it is not only for teaching the medical students but also for treating the people residing in that area. Crowding medical colleges in one area will not help the people at large.”
Therefore, the National Medical Commission has to see that the approval is granted only to the colleges established in the area where there is no medical college at all so that the treatment facilities in the ‘unserved area’ could be improved, judges opined.
“The court hopes that in future, the State government, as well as the National Medical Commission, would not approve any medical college in and around Chennai or in any other city which has already got enough medical colleges like Pondicherry,” they said.
The judges voiced the opinion in a petition filed by a medical aspirant last year, seeking direction to include 11 newly established government medical colleges in the 2020-2021 medical counselling.
Since the government counsel submitted that the applications seeking approval for the colleges are pending before the NMC, the judge disposed of the petition by calling it premature. They gave the above suggestion after noting that out of the 25 private medical colleges in the State, over 16 colleges are located in and around Chennai.
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