Applications to NMC for New PG Medical Courses, Increase of Seats under Process, Clarifies GMC Jammu Principal amid Cancellation Rumours

Jammu: The National Medical Commission (NMC) has not rejected the applications for increase of postgraduate medical seats in Medicine and Paediatrics Departments at the Government Medical College (GMC) Jammu, but those applications are under progress as of March 15, 2024, informed the Principal of the Medical College.

This comes after sources informed Daily Excelsior that the Medical Assessment and Rating Board (MARB) of the Apex Medical Commission had cancelled the applications by GMC Jammu for starting the MD Biochemistry course and the increase of MD Medicine and MD Paediatrics seats.

Issuing clarifications on the increase of PG seats in Medicine and Paediatrics Department, the Principal of GMC Jammu, Dr. Ashutosh Gupta informed that the process of enhancement is under progress and there is no mention of any rejection of any kind anywhere.

Also Read: Admission beyond Sanctioned Capacity: NMC reduces 8 MBBS Seats at GMC Jammu for this academic year

Explaining that the process of enhancement of PG medical seats is done in five steps, Dr. Gupta told Daily Excelsior, "In first step, there is a scrutiny of applications at various levels and as per our knowledge more than one thousand PG seats enhancement applications including ours have been submitted by medical colleges across the country. After first scrutiny, only those colleges where the application are completed in all aspects are permitted and others are communicated in case of any shortcomings."

"In the second step, the formal compliance is sought from medical colleges and in the third step after the institution submits the deficiencies, a review of deficiency/compliance is done by NMC followed by the fourth step wherein the final decision is taken by the NMC and the result is published," he added.

He confirmed that as per the official information available with their office, their application is at stage 1 -it is under review as evident from the NMC portal. "NMC has no where mentioned in its website that application of GMC Jammu regarding enhancement of PG seats has been rejected," he claimed. 

This clarification comes after the recent media report by the Daily claimed that the application for starting MD Biochemistry course and increase of seats in MD Medicine and MD Paediatrics got cancelled by NMC MARB.

Sources informed Daily Excelsior that GMC Jammu applied to start the MD Biochemistry course with 4 seats after surrendering 2 DNB seats for the year 2024-2025. Apart from this, the institute also applied for increase of 6 MD Medicine seats from existing 13 seats and increase of 6 MD seats in Paediatrics Department from existing 14 seats. However, unfortunately, all the three applications of GMC Jammu got rejected by NMC MARB.

"With this rejection, a loss in the form of Rs 16.5 lakh was also caused to the State exchequer as application fee per course was Rs 5.5 lakh and it was non-refundable in case of rejection of the application," sources informed the Daily, adding that an inquiry should be ordered to ascertain the reason for rejection of all three applications.

They further demanded that it should come to light whether the applications submitted by the institute were incomplete or not in compliance with the NMC format or not in adherence with the NMC guidelines. "Accountability need to be fixed as it is big loss not only to the institution, state exchequer but also to the student community," added the sources.

"Further, while applying for MD Biochemistry for the year 2024-2025, it is assumed that DNB course already operational in Department of Biochemistry must have been surrendered. In case it has been surrendered, then Department of Biochemistry in principal can not apply for the renewal of the courses for the academic year 2024-25, for which the last date is 31st of March but in case they have not declared the surrendering of the DNB courses while applying for MD course with NMC, then it amount to concealment of facts, which is academic offense and will be taken very seriously by the both regulatory authorities i.e. NBE and NMC," the sources had told the Daily.

Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that MARB received a total of 1675 applications including 1010 applications for the start of PG courses and 665 applications for the increase of PG seats in existing medical colleges for the AY 2024-25. Among these, 1010 applications for starting PG medical courses and 665 applications for increasing PG medical seats in existing medical colleges, which the National Medical Commission (NMC) received, a total number of 10 institutes have withdrawn their applications.

Further, NMC sent communications to medical college in different phases in respect of 204 applications in the first lot, 214 applications in the second lot. Through a recent notice dated March 14, 2024, NMC issued clarifications regarding the communications sent to concerned applicant colleges and informed that the communications had been sent in respect of seeking deficient documents and information along with the submission of sworn affidavit.

Also Read: New PG medical courses or seat increase: NMC seeks submission of sworn affidavit, deficient documents, info from medical colleges