The Supreme Court has given two weeks’ time for the submission of a plan to “relocate” students of the Fathima Institute of Medical Sciences (FIMS), Minister for Health Kamineni Srinivas has said.
Addressing the media here on Wednesday, the Minister said the Supreme Court asked the Dr N.T.R. University of Health Sciences and the State government to submit a plan for relocation of about 100 FIMS students, who were not allowed to appear for their examination, into other medical colleges.
Sharing some of the ideas he had about the relocation plan, the Minister said that legal experts would be consulted first and then finally the approval of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu would be taken before it was submitted to the Supreme Court.
The Minister said he would like all the FIMS students to be relocated into government medical colleges, but the choice was ultimately left to the students. Those who wanted to join private medical colleges were welcome to do so. In case a student chose a private college, the donation paid to FIMS would be transferred to it. If the student chose a government college, the donation would be used for development of the teaching hospital attached to it, he explained.
Each college would be asked to accommodate four to five students, he said.
Asked if the Medical Council of India (MCI) would permit the additional seats in each college, the Minister said the Supreme Court was the highest authority over the issue and the MCI should oblige under these “extraordinary circumstances.”
The Minister, giving rough figures, said that there were 11 government colleges having 1,750 seats, one semi-government college with 150 seats and 17 private colleges with between 1,900 and 2,000 seats.
About counselling for MBBS and BDS admissions, the Minister said that in the C – Category there were 119 MBBS seats and 162 BDS seats to be filled. In the final phase of counselling there were 24 A-Category seats for which 4,500 candidates submitted ‘options’. Those too would be filled by the end of the final phase, he said.