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Finally, Jammu and Kashmir to have separate medical universities to increase focus on med ed

Prajanma Das

The Jammu and Kashmir government has decided to set up two separate medical universities in Srinagar and Jammu to bring medical colleges out of the supervision of non-technical universities and to bring uniformity in the curriculum.

Officials said education had suffered immensely due to lack of coordination between the non-technical universities of the state — the University of Kashmir and University of Jammu — and the Medical Council of India (MCI). This has affected its standards, said a senior professor of Government Medical College, Srinagar.

He said the University of Kashmir had never got an expert examiner from outside the state to conduct the examinations, resulting in their delay. “Why will an expert from AIIMS or PGI come to Kashmir to conduct examination for a few hundred rupees on the request of Kashmir University? The heads of the various departments of the Government Medical College use their personal rapport with them to conduct the examinations of both undergraduate and postgraduate students,” he told The Tribune.

“Kashmir and Jammu universities are overburdened with the examinations and other academic affairs of nearly 100 arts and science colleges. To run medical colleges, which have totally different exam patterns and syllabus, is a cumbersome job,” officials said.

As per the MCI guidelines, the MBBS course is five and a half years long, including a year-long internship. However, in Kashmir, it takes medical students no less than six years due to delays in examinations.

Officials in the health and medical education department said the PDP-BJP government had initiated the process to establish the medical universities and also sought an opinion from the law department. With five new institutes in the pipeline, the total number of medical colleges would rise to nine, which need separate medical universities, they added.

Principal Secretary, Health and Medical Education, Atul Dulloo told The Tribune that the government would have a consultation with the stakeholders on establishing medical universities to strengthen the medical education. “We want stable and sustainable medical universities which will help us improve the standard of the medical education,” Dulloo said.

No suicide note was found, say police.

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