The Government of India has approved additional 85 MBBS seats for Jammu and Kashmir, taking total number of medical berths available for aspirants to 985 this academic year.
On Friday, Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare(MoHFW) issued a communication to all States sanctioning enhancement of MBBSseats in the respective Governbment Medical Colleges (GMC) under EconomicallyWeaker Section (EWS) category.
While the GMCs at Srinagar and Jammu have got 30 seats each,Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Science Soura has been allotted 25additional seats.
With the addition of the fresh seats the intake capacity ofthe two GMCs has reached to 180 seats each while the capacity of SKIMS has goneup to 125 seats.
The State has now got a total of 485 additional seatsincluding 400 seats which were allotted to four new Medical Colleges of theState. The fresh seat enhancement comes as part of government of India’sdecision to that guarantees reservation for the EWS.
The Medical Colleges across different states including thosein J&K had been directed to submit applications seeking enhancement inintake capacity to accommodate the reservation without disturbing the overallcategory-wise distribution.
“After carefully considering the matter MoHFW hasaccepted the proposal of Board of Governors of Medical Council of India andhereby directs counseling authorities of States and union territories forfilling up MBBS seats under EWS as per rules in the upcoming academicsession,” reads a letter by Union Health Ministry.
An official in Health and Medical Education Department saidthat approval for more seats under the EWS category was awaited for the newMedical Colleges. “We may get have 100 more seats,” he said.