Free MBBS education: SMSIMSR submits proposal to Govt for Special free of cost admission reservation policy

Bengaluru: The Sri Madhusudan Sai Institute of Medical Sciences and Research (SMSIMSR) of Sathya Sai Grama, Muddenahalli, Chickballapur district has further appealed to the State Government for a new ‘special free of cost admission reservation policy (SFCARP)’.

This private medical college in Karnataka has decided to offer free medical education to students taking MBBS admission in the seats under both government quota and management quota.

Under this proposed scheme, students will be offered free medical education on the condition that they will work for five years at the same institute after completing the course. The institute has also offered the State for reserving seats under the 40% government quota for the students from the State, including students who have pursued their qualifying examination from the institutes of Sri Satya Sai University for Human Excellence or the sponsoring body through SFCARP.

Although the proposal was submitted to the State in the last academic year i.e. 2022-2023, it was a policy matter and it had legal hurdles. Therefore, the BJP government at that time set it aside.

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As per the latest media report by The Hindu, recently, Congress MLA from Sira constituency, T.B. Jayachandra, who is also a member of the advisory board of Sri Satya Sai University for Human Excellence, raised the matter in the State Assembly and the proposal was supported by many Congress and BJP MLAs.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated SMSIMSR on March 25, 2023. Thereafter, the institute received NMC permission for MBBS admission in 100 seats for the academic year 2023-2024. However, the institute has limited this number to 50 this year.

Among these 50 MBBS seats, there are 20 government quota seats (40%) and 30 (60%) seats belong to the management quota. The institute has decided reserving 35% of the management quota seats i.e. 18 seats for students hailing from rural educational institutes run by the University or the sponsoring body or the sister concerns of the foundation.

Apart from these, 10% of seats i.e. 5 seats will be reserved for the children of staff and 15% of seats i.e. 7 seats will be reserved for the management and overseas students of the group of foundations or its institutions or sister concerns or the University.

Besides, the management of the institute has decided to provide free medical education for the government quota students as well and requested the government for a new policy under which, the students will have to work at the institute for five years after receiving free of cost education. The institute has also requested the State for making some special provision for the 40% government quota seats so that they can be reserved only for students belonging to Karnataka.

Commenting on this, Chief Liaison Officer of SMSIMSR, Govinda Reddy told The Hindu, “We are providing free treatment for the patients. Therefore, we need service-minded doctors. Among the 60% of management quota seats, we will offer all these seats to the students of our group of institutions who will abide with all our conditions. But, the problem is with the 40% government quota seats. Therefore, we requested the government to make some special provision for these seats to be reserved for the students of our group of institutions through SFCARP.”

If the Government wants to introduce this special provision under SFCARP for SMSIMSR, the State will have to amend the rules of medical seat-sharing regulations, fee regulations, and existing reservation and roster policy. Following this, a separate consensual agreement will have to be signed or a separate regulation will have to be introduced.

The proposal by the institute will now be examined by the Directorate of Medical Education and it will later be sent to the higher office for further action. Speaking about this, Sujatha Rathod, the Director of Directorate of Medical Education told the daily, “We formed a separate committee to examine the proposal of SMSIMSR for SFCARP. The proposal has been examined and sent to higher office for further deliberation in this regards.”

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