Health ministry opposes medicine courses in IITs

NEW DELHI - The health ministry is opposed to the human resource development (HRD) ministry’s proposal to allow medical courses in Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) as it will create a regulation problem.

“There will be regulation problem. Overlapping of jurisdiction is not good for medical discipline,” a health ministry official told IANS Thursday while responding to THE HRD ministry’s decision to amend the IIT Act to incorporate “medicine” in their courses.

At present, medical colleges in the country are regulated by the Medical Council of India under the health ministry. Health ministry officials said there was no clarity on who will regulate the proposed medicine courses in IITs which are run by the HRD ministry.

“It will be a legislative decision but we believe that IITs should focus on their core area of competence. The health ministry has now decided to increase post graduate seats by 10,000 in the next few years. Our minister has already declared this,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

“They (IITs) are already into biotechnology and allied subjects, which will help the medical fraternity. They should work on that and make efforts to do better in the engineering and technology disciplines,” the official said.

Health ministry officials said they will continue to voice their opposition to any move to allow core medical courses in IITs.

Minister of State for Human Resource Development D. Purandeswari informed the Lok Sabha Wednesday that her ministry has decided to amend the IIT Act, the legislation that governs the technology institutes, to include medicine courses.

At least two IITs, including IIT-Kharagpur, have expressed their desire to widen their scope and start medicine courses.