Depending on Medical Council of India (MCI) nod to proposed addition of 64 PG seats at Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS), Kashmir may see an addition of 89 MD/MS seats for the current academic session in its three postgraduate medical institutes.
This year Government Medical College (GMC) Srinagar is expecting an increase of 25 postgraduate seats in various clinical branches. Prof Samia Rashid, principal GMC Srinagar said, “MCI, in principle, has agreed to allot us 25 seats in addition to our existing capacity. However, the decision will be communicated to us this week.”
She said that MCI was scrutinizing the documents submitted by GMC Srinagar and the final call would be taken by the council after all the codal formalities are completed at their end.
This year, 49 additional seats were expected at SKIMS Soura this year, and 15 more at SKIMS Medical College (MC). However, ambiguity over the fate of these 64 seats in total continues. Administration at SKIMS said that due to delay in seeking recognition for the MD/MS seats allotted in the past three years to these institutes, the current proposal of 64 seats enhancement cannot be processed. “For justification of a demand of seat increase, we must have our previous seats recognized by MCI,” interim-director SKIMS, Dr Omar Javed Shah said. Dr Shah said that the matter pertained to rules of MCI.
“Right now, 37 of our postgraduate seats, allotted to us in addition to our existing intake in 2015 and 2017 need to get recognition of MCI,” he said. He further said that MCI had made it amply clear that no further enhancement in intake capacity was possible if the seats granted in 2015 are not recognized.
He said that the institute was trying to fast-track the process of seat recognition so that the proposal for new addition of 64 seats could be processed by MCI. SKIMS and SKIMS MC have also missed the deadlines for proposal submission at MCI, a lapse that many faculty members blamed on the “crisis at SKIMS” while referring to the removal of Dr A G Ahangar as director of the institute in the first week of January.
A source at SKIMS said that state health minister was trying to get union health ministry to step in for SKIMS at MCI. “They (MCI) might extend the timelines but SKIMS would still need to satisfy the conditions of MCI to get any enhancement of seats,” he said.
MCI had written to all government medical colleges in J&K and other states to submit proposal to avail one-time opportunity offered by MCI to secure additional MD seats.
The decision for increase of seats in clinical specialties was taken in January 2017 as part of Government of India’s (GoI) initiative to revamp medical education and address the shortage of doctors all over the country, J&K included. Consequently, teacher student ratio was revised to allow for the increase in intake capacity of medical colleges.