MCI sanctions 174 more MBBS seats across six Assam colleges

GUWAHATI: The Medical Council of India (MCI) has sanctioned the addition of 174 more seats for MBBS courses in six medical colleges of Assam. With this, the total number of MBBS seats in the six medical colleges of the state will go up from 726 to 900, marking a 25% increase.
Till this year, there were a total of 726 MBBS seats across the six medical colleges in the state - Assam Medical College, Guwahati Medical College, Silchar Medical College, Jorhat Medical College, Fakharuddin Ali Medical College and Tezpur Medical College. As the counselling for admission to these six medical colleges will start soon, Assam director of medical education Anup Kumar Barman said that the additional seats will be available from the 2019-20 academic session.
"Each new medical college generally has 100 MBBS seats. So, 174 additional seats is almost like opening two new medical colleges in Assam," Barman added.
He further said that out of the total seats, 10% will be reserved for the general category students from the Economically Weaker Section (EWS). "From this academic session itself, we are going to reserve 10% of the seats for EWS students. With MCI now sanctioning addition of MBBS seats, the number of seats for various other reserved categories will also proportionately increase," he added.
Expressing his gratitude to Union health minister Harsh Vardhan for the decision, Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that the additional MBBS seats will be a major boost for medical courses in the state and will address the aspirations of many who wish to pursue medicine.
Under the current set of norms, the selection of candidates for the MBBS course are done on the basis of the state merit list and the all-India merit list. The 85% state quota of MBBS seats are filled up through NEET-UG (state merit list) and counselling, while the remaining 15% seats are filled up through all-India counselling on the basis of NEET-UG (all-India merit list).
Even as Assam became the fourth state in the country in January to approve 10% EWS quota in government jobs and education, bureaucratic red tape has prevented many students from availing of these benefits during the ongoing admission to colleges and universities this year.