MCI proposes relaxation of norms for new medical colleges

The Medical Council of India (MCI) has proposed relaxation of norms by changing the bed ratio in collegiate hospitals as per student admissions to facilitate setting up of medical colleges across the country.
"As per the proposed recommendations, for 100 MBBS admissions, the requirement of number beds in a medical colleges will be reduced to 470 from the existing 500, and for 150 students, it has been reduced to 650 from the current 700 beds," a senior Health Ministry official said today.
For, 200 and 250 MBBS admissions, however, the requirement of beds stands unchanged at 900 and 1100 respectively, the official said.

Also, according to the proposed ammendments in the Minimum Standard Requirements (MSR) regulations, for 100 MBBS admissions, the requirement of an examination hall having 800 sq m has been reduced to 250 sq m and for 150 admissions, against the existing requirement of 12,00 sq m examination hall, the MCI has recommended setting up of two examination halls with each having an area of 250 sq m.
Similarly, for 200 and 250 admission, MCI has proposed setting up of three examination halls each having area of 250 sq m against the current requirement of a 16,00 sq m and 20,00 sq m.

Also, examination halls can now be used as auditorium-cum-examination halls and no seperate auditoriums are required to be set up.

"Presently, 65 per cent of the total 404 medical colleges are located either in South or Western part of the country. So obviously, a large part of the country is underrepresented and likely to face shortage of doctors.
"The relaxation of norms is aimed at facilitating setting up of more medical colleges across the country," said the official.
Government in association with MCI is also looking at replacing books in physical form to eBooks and also set up eLibraries.
It was also planning to set up eClassrooms to reduce the requirement of faculty and increase the number of students each professor or associate professor can take at PG level.