Faculty Requirement not Fulfilled! Kanakapura, Ramanagara Medical Colleges Unlikely to Begin in 2025-2026

Bengaluru: With a few months left for the National Medical Commission's (NMC) inspection, the Medical Education Department in Karnataka is struggling to fill the vacancies in the newly set up medical colleges in Kanakapura and Ramanagara.

Amid this, referring to the insufficient time available for recruiting all the required faculty members for these two new medical colleges, multiple sources have opined that it is unlikely these new medical colleges will start functioning in the next academic year as well, The Hindu reported.

The Directorate of Medical Education (DME) has been given the responsibility of filling up all the vacancies in 16 government medical colleges and two new medical colleges in Kanakapura and Ramanagara by appointing senior residents and other faculty members in the next three months.

Also Read: At least 27 Karnataka medical colleges penalised by NMC

As per the media report by The Hindu, the Director of Directorate of Medical Education, Dr. B.L. Sujatha Rathod informed that the Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil chaired a meeting over the issue on Thursday. She added, "It has been decided that required senior residents will be appointed from the Directorate’s funds and a proposal for recruitment of the remaining staff will be submitted to the Finance Department."

The direction has been issued to fill up the vacancies after the NMC recently imposed fines on 16 government medical colleges for vacancies and rejecting applications for opening new medical colleges in Kanakapura and Ramanagara over the non-recruitment of teaching faculty and infrastructure in 2024-2025.

After the Commission imposed the fine, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar chaired a meeting in 2024 and directed the Department to ensure that the faculty shortage is fixed by 2025-2026. 

However, The Hindu has reported that it was only after the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) pressurized the Department that the issue was taken up.

In this regard, the Registrar of RGUHS wrote to the Department of Medical Education stating that further steps would be taken to apply to NMC seeking to start colleges in Kanakapura and Ramanagara only if the Government submitted an undertaking regarding the staff recruitment within the stipulated time frame. 

Responding to this, the Principal Secretary of the Medical Education Department on January 13 replied, "The recruitment of teaching posts in these institutions will be completed within the specified time frame."

Dr. Rathod referred to the undertaking and informed, "As per the undertaking, teaching staff will be appointed for these colleges within the stipulated time frame."

NMC last year imposed a huge penalty from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 15 lakh on these sixteen government medical colleges including Chikkamagaluru Institute of Medical Sciences, Chitradurga Institute of Medical Sciences, and others. Now, all the teaching vacancies have to be filled up to avoid any restrictions being imposed for admissions in these colleges for 2025-2026. 

Also Read: NMC slaps penalty on 27 Karnataka Medical Colleges, 5 institutes fined Rs 15 lakh each