Hyderabad: The ESIC (Employee State Insurance Corporation) medical college will not be able to start classes even from 2015-16 academic ye...
Hyderabad: The ESIC (Employee State Insurance Corporation) medical college will not be able to start classes even from 2015-16 academic year. The college could not start classes for the current year as the Medical Council of India (MCI) did not accord permission as it failed to have an affiliated hospital.As a result, the ESIC is facing problems on this count. The existing 100-bedded ESI hospital, adjacent to the college, is owned by the State government. The ESIC has built a 370-bedded hospital along with the college. But its building has not yet been given power supply by the State government.
In a significant development, ESIC is now holding preliminary talks with the Telangana State government to hand over the maintenance and management of the college, according to ESIC Medical Commissioner Dr S R Chauhan, who was in Hyderabad to take part in the Good Governance Day celebrations along with Union Labour and Employment Minister Bandaru Dattatreya.
The super-specialty medical college building at Sanathnagar was constructed at a cost of Rs 435 crore. The college has 100 seats in the MBBS course per year. Of these seats, 15 per cent will be filled under the Central government quota and the quota to Telangana students may range from 35 per cent to 50 per cent. The exact percentage is yet to be decided and an MoU will have to be signed with the State government on the quota to local students.
The quota to local students in Karnataka is 45 per cent and 50 per cent of the seats in ESIC hospitals of West Bengal are reserved for local students. If 50 per cent quota goes to local students and 15 per cent to central quota, the remaining 35 per cent of seats will be filled up with wards of Insurance Policyholders (IP). ESCI has certain prescribed norms for admission to the wards of IPs.
According to ESIC officials, the Telangana government is also not forthcoming to take over the maintenance and management of the medical college as the cost of maintaining the hospital will be around Rs 700 crore and Rs 250 crore will be needed for running the college. At the same time, the tuition fee collected from the students will be of the order of Rs 2,400 per month only.
According to Dr Chauhan, the ESIC has not yet taken any decision on setting up a similar hospital at Vijayawada. This is because setting up of a 500-bedded super-specialty hospital requires 4 lakh ESI policy-holders. Vijayawada currently has 2 lakh policy-holders. It is noteworthy that the ESIC seems to be selectively developing cold feet with regard to the Sanathnagar super-specialty hospital and college. Because all the hospitals run by the Corporation in other parts of the country are ISI-certified. It has got NABL (National Accreditation Board for Laboratories) certification for its Ashramam Hospital in Kerala. The Corporation has also applied for NABH (National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers) certification as well.
