Months ahead of the National Medical Commission (NMC) review of medical colleges in the state, the Directorate of Medical Education, has been directed to appoint senior residents and other faculty members to fill all vacancies in 16 government medical colleges and the two new colleges proposed in Kanakapura and Ramanagara, in the next three months.

However, the Department is now scrambling to fill these vacancies at the last minute, raising questions about whether they will be able to do it within time. The time available for recruiting all the required faculty members for the two new colleges in Kanakapura and Ramanagara is insufficient and multiple sources said that it was unlikely that these new colleges will start functioning next academic year as well.

Dr. B. L. Sujatha Rathod, Director, Directorate of Medical Education said that Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil chaired a meeting over the issue on Thursday. “It has been decided that required senior residents will be appointed from the Directorate’s funds and a proposal for recruitment of the remaining staff will be submitted to the Finance Department,” she said.

This comes in the backdrop of NMC imposing fines on 16 government medical colleges for vacancies and rejecting applications for opening new medical colleges in Kanakapura and Ramanagara over non-recruitment of teaching faculty and infrastructure in 2024-25. Following this Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Deputy Chief Minister D. K. Shivakumar had chaired a meeting in 2024 and directed the Department to ensure the lacuna is fixed by the academic year 2025-26. However, the Department has taken up the issue only now, following pressure from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS).

RGUHS Registrar had written a letter to the Department of Medical Education stating that further steps would be taken to apply to NMC seeking starting colleges in Kanakapura and Ramanagara only if the government gave an undertaking regarding the recruitment of staff within the stipulated time frame, to which Principal Secretary, Medical Education Department has on January 13 responded: “The recruitment of teaching posts in these institutions will be completed within the specified time frame”.

“As per the undertaking, teaching staff will be appointed for these colleges within the stipulated time frame,” Dr. Rathod said.

Sixteen government medical colleges including Chikkamagaluru Institute of Medical Sciences, Chitradurga Institute of Medical Sciences, and others in the state have a shortage of teaching staff and the NMC imposed a huge penalty from ₹2 lakh to ₹15 lakh on these colleges last year. All teaching vacancies have to now be filled in the next few months to avoid any restrictions being imposed for admissions in these colleges for 2025-26. Whether the state government will be able to pull this through, is the moot question.