In a major development, Jammu and Kashmir may get 200 more MBBS seats this academic year through a central scheme for the economically disadvantaged students.
J&K government has submitted a proposal to the MedicalCouncil of India (MCI) to allow the State Government Medical Colleges to raisetheir intake capacity in the undergraduate course by a minimum of 10 percentunder the economically weaker section (EWS) quota.
The proposal, an official in the health department said, wassubmitted earlier this week. He said the proposal is in tune with the schemethat allows the medical colleges to add seats to their pool and reserve themfor economically challenged students.
The 10 percent reservation bill, which was passed in theParliament beginning this year, provides for quota in jobs and education forthe economically weak in the general category.
Commissioner Secretary, Health and Medical EducationDepartment J&K, AtalDulloo said that an increase of about 199 MBBS seatswas expected to take place through this scheme. “Our new Medical Colleges andthe existing ones have all submitted the proposals, last date of which was 7June,” he said.
He said the government was “quite positive” that each ofthese colleges will have an increase of seats and that the permission may begranted from this academic year itself. “We are hoping for about 1100 MBBSseats in J&K’s Medical Colleges this year,” he said.
Principal GMC Srinagar, Prof Kaiser Ahmed said that thisquota will be “over and above the existing quota for scheduled castes,scheduled tribes, resident of backward areas, other categories and seatsallotted to general category students”. He said this would require the institutions to increase their total seatcount by 25 per cent which would mean 25-50 additional seats for each college.”The increase in the seats will also help improve the infrastructure andfaculty of the medical colleges. Moreover, this will inevitably result in moreopportunities in the advanced medical education and improvement in patientcare,” he said.
This academic year, with MCI giving letter of permission tothe four new medical colleges of J&K, there has already been an increase of400 MBBS seats— 100 each in GMCs of Anantnag, Baramulla, Kathua and Rajouri,taking the seat pool to 900. The counseling for seats is expected to start soonafter the registration process and the state merit list of NEET qualifiers arecomplete. NEET UG result was declared on 5 June 2019.