State ends govt quota seats in three pvt medical colleges

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, June 30

Conceding to the demand of three private medical colleges — Adesh Medical College, Bathinda, Sri Guru Ram Das Medical College, Amritsar, and CMC, Ludhiana — the Department of Medical Education and Research (DMER) on Saturday agreed to end the 50 per cent government quota seats in these colleges.

The state government has now started the process to amend its February 6 notification. The notification was to govern the admission in all medical colleges in the state. According to the notification, all private medical colleges have to retain 50 per cent of their total seats as government quota seats and the annual fee for the seat was fixed at Rs 2.2 lakh.

However, three private medical colleges had challenged the notification. Denying any government quota seats, these colleges were demanding to fill all their seats as per their own agenda.

Satish Chandra, Additional Chief Secretary, Medical Education and Research, confirmed that they had received opinion from the office of the Advocate General and the admissions would be done as per the notification of the past three years.

“It is a clear case of preferring money over merit. It seems the government has auctioned the medical seats. I wonder what kind of doctors these institutes will produce,” said Dr GS Grewal, former president, Punjab Medical Council.