Corporate houses drop plans to open medical colleges

The Health Ministry's diktat that private medical colleges would have to admit only National Eligibility and Entrance Test (NEET) qualified students has compelled corporate houses to drop their plans of opening their own medical colleges.

According to sources, the Health Ministry has not yet received any application from any corporate houses to start their own medical colleges even though the government has relaxed the 'tough norm' to open a medical institution.

The government had eased the stringent norm of opening a medical college only through a non-profit making trust with the objective of injecting transparency in medical education, as a large number of existing medical colleges are indirectly owned by business houses through their non-profit making organisation.

"As every medical college has to admit only NEET qualified students, there is no scope for profit-making corporate houses to admit students by charging 'exploitative' capitation fee. When the clause was eased, it was seen as a 'business opportunity' for corporate establishments and anticipating no great financial returns, they might have thought to do away with their plans," a ministry official said.

"As of now, no such proposal has come from any corporate houses, but we will wait until July 7 to make it official as it is the last date to apply for opening a medical college by business establishments," the official added.

Given that there is an acute shortage of medical practitioners in the country, the move was initiated to meet the crisis as the rule was relaxed to attract business houses for establishing new medical colleges.

The decision was taken after the issue was discussed at a high-level meeting on medical education in the presence of officials from the Prime Minister's Office last year.

At the meeting, the private players had raised their concern that the existing Medical Council of India guideline was an impediment to opening new medical colleges.

There are 466 medical colleges in the country, of which about 300 colleges are run by private players. The total number of medical seats is 64,670 against the requirement of over 1 lakh doctors every year. The country is facing a shortage of about 6 lakh medical practitioners.