Shimla: The Himachal Pradesh High Court today after hearing a writ petition challenging the union government decision in declining permission to the newly set up ESI Medical College, Mandi for starting MBBS course from the 2014-15 session issued notices to union government’s health and labour ministry, Medical Council of India (MCI), Employee State Insurance Corp (ESI), ESI Medical College, Mandi and others.
The petition moved by Tejinder Gupta, a resident of Ner Chowk, Mandi, came up before the division bench of Justice VK Sharma and Justice Dharam Chand Chaudhary.
Giving details, Ajay Vaidya, the lawyer who has move the petiton on behalf of Gupta, said, “a case of adopting a discriminatory approach in granting conditional permissions for starting MBBS courses in new medical colleges for 2014-15 by the union government and MCI has been made out.”
“Where 11 other new medical colleges, otherwise found deficient by MCI in infrastructure and staffing requirements, have been granted conditional permission to start a MBBS batch from the 2014-15 session, the same benefit has not been extended to ESI Medical College, Mandi where much of the infrastructure has already been set up”, says Vaidya.
Having been under construction for 3 years, ESI Medical College, Mandi with an intake of 100 MBBS seats was slated to start functioning from 2014-15.
Set up by Employee State Insurance Corp, a public sector undertaking under Labour Ministry of the union government, about Rs 600 crore are said to have already been spent on buildings and equipments to set up the new medical institution.
The college is said to have also recruitment much of the staff required for starting the first year bachelors degree course in medicine and surgery.
As Editor, Ravinder Makhaik leads a team of media professionals at Hill Post.
Spanning a career of over two decades in mass communication, as a Documentary Filmmaker, TV journalist, Print Media journalist and with Online & Social Media, he brings with him a vast experience. He lives in Shimla.
Can medical facility only given to ESI card holder? or it can be given anyone mean for general public.