The Dental Council of India (DCI) will ask Chief Ministers not to encourage private dental colleges in their States, its president D. Mazumder said on Sunday.
Delivering the inaugural address at the first national symposium on Dental Stem Cell Research, organised by the Central Dental Research Foundation (CDRF), he said out of the 289 dental colleges in the country, 40 per cent were owned by the government and the rest by private parties.
Unlike government dental colleges, some of the private colleges did not have clinical material to provide training and it was one of the major reasons for not attracting many students.
“I will soon be writing to the Chief Ministers not to encourage private dental colleges. If the request (for new colleges) comes from the government, we will consider it. Currently, we have six applications pending. In Tamil Nadu, there are 29 dental colleges and 16 medical colleges. The need of the hour is to have more medical colleges than dental colleges,” he said.
Dr. Mazumder also said the DCI would move a resolution on June 6 to reintroduce compulsory one-year internship. By June 10, it would be sent to the Union Health Minister and it would take some more time for it come back as a gazette notification. Out of 12 months, the students would be asked to serve in rural areas for three months. Besides getting an opportunity to serve people in the rural areas, they would gain some experience.
Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University Vice-Chancellor Mayil Vahanan Natarajan said the State government should consider setting up dental college hospitals in Madurai, Coimbatore and Tirunelveli.
In his keynote address, he asked Dr. Mazumder not to reject the application of the State government for a dental college as it was most needed for the common man.
He also urged senior academicians to register for research that would eventually stimulate younger people to follow them.
To mark the occasion, Dr. Mazumder unveiled a plaque recognising the CDRF as a scientific and industrial research organisation by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and it was received by CDRF Research Director K. Ranganathan.
Dr. Mayil Vahanan handed over the plaque of the CDRF as a centre for international multi-centric trial on Zygoma implants and it was received by CRDF president R. Gunaseelan.
Mr. Gunaseelan said the symposium was organised to create awareness about the possibilities in the field of dental stem cell studies.
