MCI gives nod to 150 MBBS seats at Gian Sagar Medical College
The first batch of students will be admitted from the academic session beginning June this year, say officials
PATIALA: The Medical Council of India (MCI) has given nod to the Gian Sagar Medical College and Hospital, Banur in Patiala, run by the Gian Sagar Educational and Charitable Trust, to admit 150 students in the MBBS course from the coming academic session.
The first batch of 150 students would be admitted from the next (2020) academic session.
The college was closed in 2017 as government withdrew essentiality certificate (a mandatory condition to run a medical college) due to financial crisis in the trust managing the college.
A new management took over the trust in May 2018. In 2017, over 1,500 students of the college were shifted to other medical colleges in the state.
The college was given the essentiality certificate by the Punjab government allowing it to start MBBS, BDS, bachelors in physiotherapy and bachelors in nursing courses in July last year.
Admissions to 60 seats each in the bachelors in physiotherapy and bachelors in nursing courses were made last year.
The decision to reopen the college had been taken on the persistent demand of the people of the area. The hospital caters to the medical needs of hundreds of villages in the vicinity.
The college was shut in 2017 when trust chairperson Nirmal Singh Bhangu was arrested by CBI in the Pearl chit fund scam. The college was shut as staff was not paid salaries. To save career of students enrolled in the college, the government shifted them to other government-run medical colleges of the state.
A spokesperson of the Gian Sagar Educational and Charitable Trust said that the outpatient departments, indoor patient departments and operation theatres have started functioning. New equipment and machines are being procured to upgrade the hospital to a multispecialty one. He said the MCI inspected the college and found the infrastructure adequate to run the MBBS course.