Of 261 inspections, inspectors from medical colleges in Gujarat were involved in about 100 and another 40 involved faculty from Bihar. Yet inspectors from Tamil Nadu, the state with the highest number of government medical colleges, were involved in just seven inspections. There were 24 inspectors involved in 40 inspections from just two medical colleges in Haryana, a state with just three government colleges, while only six faculty members were involved in seven inspections from Kerala, a state with nine medical colleges. Out of 33 inspections done by inspectors from Delhi, 21 were from just one medical college, Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC), though Delhi has six medical colleges. Of those from MAMC, just two doctors were involved in 11 inspections.
Moreover, while inspectors from all states were drawn from government medical colleges, Gujarat stands out as an exception with 26 of 58 inspectors from the state coming from five Gujarat Medical Education and Research Society (GMERS) run colleges, of which 11 were from GMERS medical college Gandhinagar started in 2012 and six from GMERS Ahmedabad started in 2011. Of the 26 inspections done by GMERS inspectors, 18 were of private medical colleges.
In Bihar, of the six medical colleges from where 21 inspectors were selected, nine were from Patna Medical College and seven from the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Patna. Thus two medical colleges in Bihar accounted for over three quarters of inspectors from the state. Most of the inspections done by inspectors from these three states - Gujarat, Bihar and Haryana -- were in private medical colleges.
Quite obviously, a random selection of inspectors from 183 government medical colleges in the country could not give such a skew. This has raised suspicion of handpicked inspectors being sent to assess specific medical colleges, which has also raised questions about how fair the assessments were.
In a letter to the prime minister last month, a council member raised the issue of irregularities in the inspection of medical colleges. His letter to the PM pointed out that an analysis of the inspection process showed how "the assessors are selected from some medical colleges and states which is in itself an indication that it is stage-managed". "When assessors are handpicked, what difference will it make whether it is surprise inspection or not," he asked. The letter also pointed out that the MCI executive body was selecting a majority of the assessors from around 10 medical colleges.
Despite hundreds of faculty members from 183 government medical colleges being available, the assessment reports show that about 20 inspectors have done as many as four to nine inspections each. Some of those who did seven or nine inspections were mostly sent to private medical colleges. These 'serial inspectors' were part of almost half the inspections conducted this year.
Alarm bells are ringing at this pattern because the bribing of MCI inspectors, treating them to lavish lunches and dinners and expensive gifts by private medical colleges, have been widely reported in the past. For a private medical college, permission to increase the number of seats following a favourable inspection brings in capitation fee of Rs 50-80 lakh per seat. This was the reason for tightening the norms for selection of inspectors and for doing surprise inspections.
Questions are also being asked whether these not-so-random inspections resulting in thousands of medical college seats being slashed this year, especially in government medical colleges, is just a coincidence. The cut in seats led to a jump in the 'price' of medical college seats by several lakhs this year, a windfall for private medical colleges.
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