AGARTALA, May 1 (TIWN): In a significant observation made by the Tripura High Court on Thursday, the High Court asked the Manik Sarkar led state Govt. to clarify it’s stand in the management of the Tripura Medical College and Dr. B R Ambedkar Memorial Teaching Hospital within three months’ time. In an observation made by the Honorable High Court of Tripura while hearing the case filed by Dr. Ashok Sinha, the Spokesperson of Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee seeking clarification about the nature of management of the medical college, the division bench comprising of Chief Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice U B Saha, the court acknowledged Dr. Ashok Sinha’s allegation that the govt. is controlling the working of the medical college and gave the state government three months’ time to clarify whether the medical college is run by the society or by the Govt.

The court observed that a  medical college run by a society cannot be influenced or controlled by govt.Dr. Sinha had earlier cited the MCI guidelines that two medical colleges  run by the govt. within the same state cannot have two separate entrance test for admission into MBBS course.

The court observed that the manner in which the institution is being run it appears more to be run by the state Govt. than by the society set up to run the society.

It may be mentioned here that the state government’s interference in the society’s management was always seen with suspicious eye by different sections of the society.

It may be mentioned here that the college was established in 2005 by the Government of Tripura and Global Educational Net (GENET) in a Public-Private Partnership, the first venture of its kind in entire India in the medical sector. But it received its first MCI permission for admission of students into M.B.B.S. course in 2006. However, during the month of April–May 2009, due to some untold reasons the GENET expressed their inability to run the institution any further. At that time 200 students were pursuing the M.B.B.S course from there. So the Government of Tripura decided to run the college through a society and registered a society in the name and style of " Society for Tripura Medical College and Dr.B R Ambedkar Memorial Teaching Hospital" on 23 May 2009.

The GENET was alleged of siphoning out crores of Govt. money from the state taking advantage of the close tie up of the GENET owner with the higher officials of the state adminstration .

The college has an annual intake of 100 students for the MBBS course out of which 15 seats are reserved for All-India Pre Medical Test (CBSE/AIPMT).  

The college started post graduation courses(MD/MS) permitted by MCI from 2013-14 academic year in the  departments of Pharmacology, Pathology,General Medicine andE.N.T.

It may be mentioned here that the two medical colleges of the state has huge difference in the fee structure of the students in the MBBS and MD/MS courses. The so called society run TMC charges almost 9-10 times the fees cgarged by the Govt. run Agartala Govt. Medical College. 

The extreme differences in the fee structures in two medical colleges of the state was not taken easily by the parents and many questions were raised earlier also by different sections of the society. The Govt. was so far justifying the fee differences owing to the differences in the mode of operation of the two medical colleges. 

“The so called pro- poor left front Govt. of the state was actually lying the people in order to collect higher fees from the rich families depriving the poor but meritorious students of the state’, said one of the poor and deprived student of the state who could not get admitted into the MBBS course in the Tripura Medical College.