West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention to ensure that medical students who returned from Ukraine can continue their studies in India.
“Sir, this is an unprecedented war situation which calls for extraordinary solution,” Ms. Banerjee wrote, seeking amendments to the National Medical Commission (NMC) Act to accommodate the students.
“I request you for your kind urgent intervention. I also request you that as students who have returned to other States are facing similar problems, the steps that may be taken by NMC be implemented for other States as well,” Ms. Banerjee pointed out in her letter.
The Chief Minister made a number of suggestions in her letter, including allowing internship for these students in government medical colleges of the State and payment of stipend on a par with other candidates.
“For other students in different years of the studies, they may be allowed to get admitted at the equivalent level in the private medical college against the existing seats and these medical colleges may be allowed to increase equivalent number of seats for accommodating these students,” she added.
The Chief Minister also suggested that relevant guidelines for admission of medical colleges which are through the National Entrance Eligibility Test ( NEET) may be relaxed as a special case to accommodate these students. “The private medical colleges of the State have agreed to accommodate these students at the State quota fees. Government of West Bengal has also decided to extend financial assistance to these students to meet the expenses of their course fees,” Ms. Banerjee said.
She added that about 391 students from West Bengal have returned from Ukraine.
Earlier in the day, Ms. Banerjee interacted with students hailing from West Bengal who have returned from war-torn Ukraine and told them that she would be writing to the Centre about their plight. She also assured them that she would be assigning the task of communicating with the NMC to bureaucrats from the State .
Ms. Banerjee said the State government would make room for engineering students so that they can complete their courses in West Bengal colleges and won’t have to pay a higher fee.
The Chief Minister added that the benefits of Students Credit Card , a credit scheme of the State government, would be made available to the students who have returned from Ukraine.
