Telangana State pitches for hike in additional MBBS seats

Hyderabad: Telangana Health department has written a letter to Medical Council of India (MCI) to increase the number of additional seats allotted to the State this year for implementation of EWS (Economically Weaker Sections) quota.

MCI had allotted 190 seats to Telangana as against the initial proposal of 300 additional seats put forward by the government.

Citing the cases of Maharashtra and Rajasthan, where MCI had allotted a whopping 970 and 450 additional seats respectively, Telangana wants the health regulatory body to give a relook and increase the number of additional seats from the earlier allotted 190 seats.

After the MCI circular few weeks ago where it was mentioned that each college can send a proposal to allow a maximum of 50 additional seats, Directorate of Medical Education, Telangana sent proposals to sanction 50 seats to each of its government medical colleges, where 10 percent EWS quota is being implemented for this year.

While Osmania Medical College was not considered as it has already has 250 seats (the maximum permitted by MCI for any medical college), the new colleges in Nalgonda and Suryapet, which are starting classes from the current academic year ( 2019-20) with 150 seats each were not considered for additional seats quota this year.

This means only six government medical colleges got the additional seats quota. While Gandhi and Kakatiya Medical Colleges got additional seats of 50 each making the total number of intake in both colleges to 250 seats each.Colleges in Mahbubnagar and Siddipet were sanctioned 25 additional seats while medical colleges in Nizamabad and Adilabad were given 20 seats each.

While in Gandhi and Kakatiya colleges the additional seat quota was 25 per cent (50 seats hiked, the same rule was not extended to other four colleges.

Officials want the MCI to reconsider its initial decision and sanction additional seats. If 25 percent additional seats rule is applied, the remaining four medical colleges would benefit by an additional 35 seats totally.

However, if upper limit of 50 additional seats for each college is considered, Telangana stands to get another 110 seats taking the additional seats number to 300.

Kaloji officials stated that 10 percent of total intake in the six medical colleges would be allotted for EWS quota. For example if Gandhi has a total of 250 seats (after including the freshly allotted to 50 seats), 10 percent of total seats, which comes to 25 seats, would be given to students from EWS background.