Medical Council & Us

“Did you read today’s news? The Medical Council of India chief has been arrested and put in police custody for 5 days.” One of the news buffs said. My department has a few of them. “Yes, I did” I said. “It seems he had asked for twenty million rupees for giving recognition to a medical college.” “Twenty million? Last I heard it was ten million” said a knowledge buff. We have some of those too in my department. “I would not know” I said. “I don’t go as MCI inspector anywhere.” “Why? They treat you well, five star accommodations, fine food, good money and a lot of respect” said a regular MCI inspector. We have a couple of them too. “I don’t go because I don’t want to be involved in something like what you see in today’s news” I said. “You mean the inspectors also will be pulled up?” said the professor who was all for going as inspector for the accommodation, food, money and respect. She seemed a bit worried now. “They can pull up whoever seems to be involved” said the knowledge buff. “Besides, I dislike what they are doing to our institute” I said. They have received fee for inspecting our institute for DGO in 2001. In spite of repeated reminders, they have not come for that inspection. Our residents passing DGO cannot practice outside the state though they are good, only because MCI does not recognize the institute for DGO. Why should I work for them when they won’t recognize our institute? “That must be because we did not offer 20 million rupees” said the cynic. We have one such in my department. “They have issued a show cause notice to our institute, threatening to derecognize us. Imagine derecognizing us, one of the best institutes in the country” said another professor. “Not one of the best” I said “the best!” “It seems the idea is to derecognize public institutes like ours, so that students will be forced to join private institutes. That is where they charge fortunes for admissions” said the knowledge buff. I wondered where he picked up such classified information. “That is unlikely to happen” I said. “There will be a hue and cry if public institutes close down.” They seemed to find this agreeable. I hoped it was the truth, or there would be no future to future students of this country, if they had no money for education in fancy institutes.