Why Mizoram wants centre to take over its only medical college

Mizoram got its first state medical college in 2018. In 2023, it asked the union government to take over. Mixed up in this are questions of funding, MBBS seat distribution

- Pritha Roy Choudhury

In 2018, Mizoram got its first state medical college. Five years later, it tried to offload it onto the centre. The chief minister, Lalduhoma of the Zoram People's Movement, who assumed office in December 2023, requested the union government to convert Zoram Medical College into an Institute of National Importance.

The college has been facing both funding and faculty shortages. "We wanted the centre to take care of the management of the medical college as we are facing a crunch in resources and a shortage of funds and faculty," said Dr John Zohmingthanga, director, Zoram Medical College. However, the union government did not agree.

Typically, transferring the ownership of medical colleges has wider implications than just a change in the source of funding. State-run and governed medical colleges admit students from within the state to 85% of the seats, surrendering the remaining 15% to the "all-India quota" (AIQ) for which students from all over the country are eligible. But in a centrally-run institution, such as the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Delhi, all seats belong to the AIQ.

In national institutions set in northeastern states, the seat distribution pattern is different. The North East Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) in Shillong, Meghalaya, is a central institution but caters mainly to the northeastern states; 85% of its seats are distributed among Meghalaya, Nagaland, and northeastern states as a whole, including Sikkim. Similarly, 85% of MBBS seats at Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Imphal - also a central institution are earmarked for northeastern states. Even while expanding access to students from the northeastern states, institutions do not earmark all non-AIQ seats to a single state.

A rocky start