Edu-leaders

Acting upon the proactive approach of the Jharkhand government to qualitatively upgrade its healthcare mechanism, the Medical Council of India (MCI) has approved the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences’ (RIMS) proposal to admit 150 students in its MBBS course against the existing 90 seats.

However, the apex body turned down the State government’s plan to increase the number of seats in the other two medical colleges—MGM College and Hospital, Jamshedpur, and Patliputra Medical College and Hospital, Dhanbad—owing to poor infrastructure and faculty strength.

Confirming the MCI’s nod to enhance seat capacity for RIMS, State Health Minister Hemlal Murmu said the state government had sent a proposal to increase seat capacity of RIMS to 250 in the light of a cabinet decision. “However, the MCI gave us the approval to take admission of 150 students in the MBBS course,” he added.

An officer of the health department said the MCI had given its go ahead after the state government made a written undertaking to bring about substantial improvement in infrastructural support of the RIMS prior to taking admission of the new batch.

RIMS Director Tulasi Mahato said the process to fill up vacancies in teaching faculty at the institute had already been started. “If everything goes as per the plan, we expect to have adequate number of teaching faculty and other support staff within a couple of months,” he said.