The Central government-run Employees’ State Insurance Corporation Medical College in K.K. Nagar has been denied permission this year to admit students.
This means aspiring medical students stand to lose 400 seats across the country. In Tamil Nadu, 65 seats have been lost this year.
The ESIC Medical College was launched in 2013 and has since admitted two batches of 100 students each. But last December when the Medical Council of India came for inspection it had found several deficiencies and had advised the college to rectify them, failing which, it would lose permission, the inspection team said.
Students went on strike
When the students realised that the ESIC was not making efforts to rectify the deficiencies they went on strike demanding assurance that their colleges would continue to run. In March, Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya had said that all the four medical colleges currently operational would be run and the State government also said that the seat matrix from the previous years would be followed.
However, last week, the MCI website notified that all the four ESIC medical colleges in the country were not permitted to admit students.
Sources in the State Health Department said the college had rectified the deficiencies but the MCI had to abide by a Supreme Court order that no inspection can be done after May 15. ESIC college officials, however, refused to comment on it.
Coimbatore ESIC college
Meanwhile, indications are that the Coimbatore ESIC College, proposed earlier, may come up in the near future as the State government has evinced interest in running the college.
