PG dip seat conversion: Med colleges still have chance

The Medical Council of India (MCI) has given an ultimatum to medical colleges in Karnataka that are yet to convert the postgraduate diploma seats to postgraduate medical seats this academic year.

Naming eight colleges in the state that failed to surrender the PG diploma seats and have them converted into postgraduate seats, the MCI said that following non-conversion, these seats will be re-notified for the academic year.

This year, as a result, the number of PG medical seats available in Karnataka will be less by 97 at the time of counselling.

The Board of Governors in Supersession of Medical Council of India (BoG-MCl) has brought to the notice of the Ministry that due to a variety of reasons, some diploma courses which were de-notified could not be converted to degree seats by BoG-MCl.

“As a consequence of non-conversion of diploma seats, there will be depletion of PG seats during the counselling for the current academic year 20l9-20. ln view of the foregoing, the Ministry has considered re-notifying the diploma seats,” the notification read.

The idea behind the conversion was that the MCI had found a need to better the quality of medical education. Also, as there were fewer opportunities for students with a diploma, the MCI said that the move would make them more employable and help them avail better promotions.

Dr P G Girish, director, department of medical education, told DH that these seats will be available post 2020. “There was some confusion with individual colleges and the staff pattern was not clear. Hence, these colleges could not convert them to postgraduate seats,” he said.

Girish said that from the next academic year, the number of PG seats would be up by 150. In six districts, government medical colleges have proposed to have 30 different PG courses. “The MCI had said that there was a staff shortage. This has been filled and we are awaiting the inspection to be over now,” he said.

Karnataka Institute of Medical Science (KIMS), Hubballi, which has not surrendered 48 diploma seats, said it was due to miss-communication from MCI that they were not able to act upon the order.

“KIMS is not just at one place. The MCI sent the circular to the wrong e-mail id. By the time we got the notification, the last date was over. Now, we have given the information about the number of diploma seats, which will be converted to PG seats by the next academic year,” Dr Ramalingappa, director, KIMS, Hubballi told DH. JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research, Mysuru, has retained seven diploma seats for the current academic year.

“According to the order, we had surrendered all seats to MCI. Later, we received the reply from MCI on giving back the seats, as the process was not completed due to time constraint,” Dr Manjunath, the registrar, said. The institutions have gone ahead with the admissions for diploma seats for this academic year.