The State government on Friday informed the Madras High Court of having written a letter to the Centre seeking its concurrence for shifting 150 second year MBBS students of Ponnaiyah Ramajayam Institute of Medical Sciences (PRIMS) at Kancheepuram to other self-financing private colleges in the State because of lack of basic facilities.
Justice S.S. Sundar was apprised of the letter written by Health Secretary J. Radhakrishnan to the Union Health and Family Welfare Secretary Preeti Sudan on Wednesday. The communication requested for providing necessary permission by the Centre as well as the Medical Council of India for shifting all the students to other private colleges.
After recording the contents of the letter, the judge directed the State government to apprise the Centre as well as MCI of the vacant seats available in different private colleges and how the 150 students could be accommodated over there. He later adjourned the hearing on a batch of cases filed by the students to October 12.
The court was informed that the State government had issued Essentiality Certificate to PRIMS on August 28, 2014, with an annual intake of 150 students from the academic year 2015-16 subject to compliance of certain conditions. However, the MCI recommended the Centre not to issue Letter of Permission (LoP) to the institution due to some defects.
Subsequently, the Centre gave an opportunity to the institution to rectify defects such as shortage of outpatients, low bed occupancy, non-availability of blood bank and so on. Thereafter, on August 11, 2016, an oversight committee appointed by the Supreme Court recommended admission of students from the academic year 2016-17.
Based on the recommendation, the Centre issued a LoP to the college on August 20, 2016 and it admitted 150 students that year. However, after getting admitted the students began to complain about lack of infrastructure to the government and also filed cases before the High Court which insisted on shifting the students to other government or private colleges.
Since, the government had only last year shifted about 144 student of Annai Medical College and Hospital at Pennalur in Sriperambudur to various government colleges in the State, following directions issued by Justice N. Kirubakaran of the High Court, this time it was decided to shift the student of PRIMS to other private colleges.