State to get three new medical colleges in 2011-12

Mumbai: After a seven-year gap, the state has decided to increase the student intake at its public medical colleges. Plans are afoot to start three new medical colleges—in Alibaug, Nandurbar and Gondhia—each with a student-intake capacity of 100.
    Speaking to TOI, medical education minister Vijay Kumar Gavit said the proposal would be placed in the next cabinet, and the construction of classes and labs prescribed
for first-year medical students would take six to eight months. “We will then start all these three colleges in the academic year beginning 2011,’’ Gavit added.
    The state will provide Rs 300 crore to set up these colleges, and the intake in government medical colleges will increase from 2,060 to 2,360. This is significant considering the amount of private and state investment that has been ploughed into the medical education sector by Maharashtra in recent decades. Virtually every well-known politician heads a trust that runs a medical college, well apart from a cluster of educational institutes in other fields.
    However, in the last five years, neighbouring states such as Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh (AP) have seen similar trends due to the growing demand for medical education. In fact, since 2001, five medical colleges—three government-run and two private—have come up in Maharashtra, while 12 were started in Karnataka and 14 in AP.
    In the last five years alone, of the nearly 40 new medical colleges set up across the country, a large proportion came up in AP and Karnataka. In Maharashtra, just one college—Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University, Sangli—came up in 2005. Before that, Vikhe Patil Medical College in Ahmednagar was the only new private college to be set up in nine years.
    Thousands of candidates vie for seats in 18 state-run medical colleges, as fees in private colleges have inflated beyond the reach of the middle class. Gavit said, “We plan on keeping the fees low as public education must be accessible to all.’’ But where will he find the faculty to teach the courses at the new institutes?
    “We will have 160 professors and associate professors now for four more years, as we have upped the retirement age from 58 to 62 years. Also, we are getting many more applications from faculty, with Maharashtra now giving higher pay scales,’’ said Gavit.