'Applications for New Medical Colleges Can Now Be Filed Online'

Making the process of setting up medical colleges easier and transparent, the government has rolled out an online facility for registration process of new institutions as well for increasing seats in existing ones.

"A new procedure for submitting application/proposal for establishment of new medical college, starting/increase intake in MBBS course in existing medical college has been introduced by the Ministry from the academic session 2016-17... It will be an add-on procedure which will run parallel with conventional procedure of manual submission of applications and comes into effect from August 1, 2015. As per the revised procedure, an online application is mandatory," a public notice on the Health Ministry website said.

Under the revised process, an applicant has to go the health ministry website, click on online approvals of medical colleges, register by making an id, fill up the application form, upload a scanned copy of eligibility certificate and demand draft as evidence of fees paid and obtain an acknowledgement.

"It is just the beginning towards the online path. Various processes are proposed to be automated in the next one year. This will bring in more transparency and and speed up the process," a senior Health Ministry official said.