The Medical Council of India's (MCI) refusal to give permission to run three government medical colleges approved last year and two proposed this year has brought back the issue of faculty shortage to focus.

The council has given the colleges another chance but the heads of institution are in a fix, unable to find qualified professors to meet the MCI requirement of 95 per cent faculty strength.

Time is running out for them and most of them are clueless on how to find professors for anatomy, forensic medicine, physiology and pharmacology, the branches worst affected by the problem.

The five colleges denied approval by the MCI have to fill up the vacancies in record time. Medical Education Minister V.S. Acharya had promised students that all the six colleges would be approved before the Common Entrance Test Casual Vacancy Round that is scheduled to be conducted between July 9 and 11. The MCI has given green signal to only one new college, in Bidar. It has not approved the Mandya, Hassan and Belgaum colleges approved last year.

The government college in Belgaum, which has a 750-bed hospital attached to it, is confident of getting approval even with an increased intake of 150. "We are looking for three more professors to meet the MCI requirement. But despite the salary hike, professors are not ready to join. The greed for money seems to be too much," said Gurumurthy, principal of the college.

The going could be really tough for the government college in Hassan that has a 25 per cent faculty shortage. "As many as 25 to 30 new medical colleges have come up in south India in the past few years. You cannot get professors all of a sudden. Private colleges pay salaries of about Rs. 1.5 lakh, but government salaries cannot match that even with the hike," college principal Govindaraj said.

Pre-clinical and para-clinical courses were hardly in demand about 10 years ago, and not many postgraduates specialised in these subjects. But technological revolution has triggered a fresh demand for these courses.

Colleges suddenly find that they have very few specialists with teaching experience to choose from.

Dr. Govindaraj said that the MCI could allow general subject professors or general surgeons to teach anatomy and physiology.

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