It has been a harrowing experience for students allocated seats in the medical colleges of Assam. For reasons best known to the Government of Assam, the students from Meghalaya who had passed their NEET examination were met with rebuff when they went to join their respective medical colleges in Assam. On its part the Assam Government claimed that it had intimated the North Eastern Council which has nothing to do with the allocation of medical seats. This bureaucratic faux-pas has led to delay in sorting out the conundrum. Since Meghalaya is headed for elections soon and the Assam Health Minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, is also the chairperson of the BJP-led North East Democratic Alliance (NEDA) which has its eyes fixed on the outcome of the Meghalaya elections, there is reason to believe that politics has played a role in this sordid mess.
Thankfully the Supreme Court has upheld Meghalaya’s claim for the allocated seats and we can expect the students to join their courses sooner than later. However, what also needs probing is why the plan for two state medical colleges has not taken off yet? For the Shillong Medical College the Kolkata-based KPC Group was zeroed in under the Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) mode on a plot of land measuring 23.8 acres. It is learnt that work on that site is on hold since the TB patients are not yet shifted to the new complex. So why choose that particular complex for a new medical college? The other question is why have a medical college on a small area of 23 acres when most other institutes are shifting to New Shillong because of the availability of land. With regards to the Tura Medical College, the Government has appointed Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd (TCIL), a government undertaking to prepare the Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the project. Interestingly the Tura Medical College is to be constructed on 99 acres of land which is nearly four times the size of the Shillong campus and will ostensibly accommodate 100 MBBS students. A Medical College is a growing institution and must necessarily have a multi-specialty hospital with it. Can all this come up on 23 acres of land in the middle of a congested locality of Shillong? Is this the collective wisdom of the cabinet or one person’s opinion? We need clarity on this matter since the elected representatives don’t seem to consider the matter important enough to be raised in the Assembly.
