67 medical colleges including Gian Sagar Medical College (GSMC) granted approval to conduct courses in the session 2010-11

67 medical colleges have received the approval from the Medical Council of India- highest governing body of medical education in the country- to conduct classes for the academic session 2010-2011.

Among the 67 colleges is also Gian Sagar Medical College (GSMC), the medical institute whose recognition had been stalled when former MCI Director Ketan Desai had been charged for allegedly accepting a bribe of Rs.2 crore from GSMC.

The newly constituted Board of Governors (BoG) granted permission to GSMC on Wednesday for renewing the 100 seats that the college offers for medical education.

Ketan Desai, along with associate Jitender Pal Singh as well as a representative of GSMC had been arrested in April soon after the case of corruption had been reported.

The Union Health Ministry had then set up a committee to gauge whether GSMC fulfilled the criteria for being granted the permission to run classes as a medical institute. The investigations have led to the ministry giving a clean chit to GSMC as well as 66 other institutes.

The Board of Governors was to decide the fate of around 81 medical colleges that were awaiting approval from the MCI to run classes for medical courses. From the 81 colleges, 14 colleges were not granted recognition as they did not fulfill the eligibility criteria for a medical college.

These 14 colleges had also included some government run medical institutes as well.

Ranjit Roy Chowdhury, a member of the Board of Governors said that the task for investigating and deciding the fate of the 81 medical institutes had been an enormous one.

Members of top institutions such as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jawaharlal Institute for Postgraduate Medical Education and Research as well as the armed forces had been hired to look into the status of the medical institutes.