Increase in Medical Seats in Kerala

As implied in a recent statement by the Kerala health minister, V.S Sivakumar, reported by Manorama Online, the state will witness an increase of 1850 medical seats in the government-run medical colleges. This is in view of the recent development to have a medical college in every district of the state.

There has already been an increase from 900 to 1,250 seats after the government reportedly took over the Kochi medical college in 2013. This increase was also achieved with new colleges started in Manjeri and Idukki in Kerala.

In a separate development, the state government had submitted before the Kerala High Court that it had issued notice to private self-financing medical colleges that abstained from consensual arrangements for seat sharing, invoking Section-14(1) of the Self Financing Act - 2006, as reported by the Express.

The State Government in its statement pointed out that in the prospectus for medical courses, it had listed 14 self-financing colleges which had agreed for consensual arrangements with the State Government for seat sharing and fee fixation. Seven managements have already entered into agreements, including:

• Amala Institute of Medical Sciences, Thrissur
• Jubilee Mission Medical College and Research Institute, Thrissur
• Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church Medical College, Kolencherry
• Pushpagiri Institute of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Thiruvalla
• Sree Narayana Institute of Medical Sciences, North Kuthiyathode
• Dr Somervell Memorial CSI Medical College, Thiruvananthapuram
• SUT Academy of Medical Sciences, Thiruvananthapuram

The state government has been making consistent efforts to increase the medical seats, by also giving permission to six other colleges, which have not succeeded in obtaining permission from the Medical Council of India to conduct courses in the current academic year.

They had in principle agreed that in partnership with the state government they will make available more seats after they get the required permission from the MCI. However, five other medical colleges did not cooperate with the government for discussion on consensual agreement:

• KMCT Medical College, Kozhikode
• Karuna Medical College, Palakkad
• Kannur Medical College, Kannur
• MES Medical College, Malappuram
• Travancore Medical College, Kollam