The Medical Council of India (MCI) has rejected permission to four new medical colleges in Andhra Pradesh as the colleges have been found short of meeting the stipulated norms pertaining to faculty and infrastructure facilities set by the council.

All the four colleges, three in private sector set up in Hyderabad and one in government sector, set up in Nellore district, have been intensely lobbying to get permission during the past one year.

In fact the state government had already granted essentiality certificate and given approval to all the colleges before the MCI could conduct its inspections. All these colleges have already planned to admit students from the current academic year 2013-14. But the MCI has rejected permissions as the colleges have not met the requisite quality standards.

The three private medical colleges which have got approval from the state government are owned by leaders having close links with the ruling Congress party. It is believed that all of them have secured approvals from the government with political influence but unfortunately have failed in the inspections conducted by the MCI.

Among the new private medical colleges, Aleti Suneetha Medical College in Patancheru is owned by congress MLA Aleti Maheswar Reddy from Nirmal of Adilabad district. Another college, St Augustine Medical College, which is also located in Patancheru is owned by T Rammohan Reddy, who is a Congress leader from Pargi in Rangareddy district. Rammohan Reddy is also chairman of TRR group of colleges and already owns engineering and pharmacy colleges in the state. The third college which was denied permission by the MCI is Malla Reddy Women’s Medical College located in Jeedimetla. This college is owned by C Malla Reddy, chairman of Malla Reddy Group of Colleges.

With MCI rejecting permission, the state government has got into an embarrassing situation. It shows that the state government does not have any standard procedure before granting approvals to the new colleges, because of which the educational standards are at a low level in the state.

Despite getting rejected, the private colleges are still lobbying to secure at least “conditional approval” by July 15 2013 as this is the last date for MCI to grant any new approval for the current academic year.

The Nellore government medical college which was also granted permission by the state government under pressure from local political leader too has failed to get the MCI permit. In fact the state government had granted Rs.300 crore for the current financial year.

Had all these medical colleges cleared MCI inspections, the state could have achieved an additional 350 MBBS seats for the current academic year.