IIT Kharagpur is seeking National Medical Commission approval to start a 20-seat postgraduate MD programme in the next academic year, after an NMC team inspected the institute’s medical education and hospital infrastructure before Durga Puja. If permission is granted, the institute will become the first IIT in India to offer a postgraduate medical programme, director Suman Chakraborty said.
The NMC team inspected Dr B.C. Roy Medical College on the IIT campus and the Syama Prasad Mookerjee Institute of Medical Science and Research at Balarampur, on the outskirts of the campus. The hospital will provide hands-on training for students if the programme is approved.
“To start a medical programme, an institute must be equipped with a medical college supported by a hospital. We have both. If the council permits us, IIT is looking forward to starting the programme from the next academic year. We are ready and are awaiting the outcome of the visit,” Chakraborty said.
IIT Kharagpur applied to the NMC earlier this year for approval to offer the 20-seat course. The institute has appointed 20 doctors to teach students and has sought permission for six specialities, including general medicine, radiology, pathology, physiology and community medicine. Candidates will be selected through the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test.
The proposed programme is part of a wider institutional expansion into health science and technology. IIT Kharagpur has launched a faculty of integrated health science and technology and appointed a dean of medical science to oversee the new course. An institute official said the faculty was created to respond to the growing convergence between medicine and technology and the employment opportunities emerging from that intersection.
The new faculty was also presented to the NMC inspection team, the official said. The institute’s approach places the proposed postgraduate programme within an existing engineering and research campus rather than creating a standalone medical university. Its approval will therefore depend on whether the college, hospital, faculty and clinical training arrangements meet the regulator’s requirements.
IIT Kharagpur’s medical ambitions date back to May 17, 2007, when then President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam laid the foundation stone for the Dr B.C. Roy Multi-Speciality Medical Research Centre. The original plan envisaged an MBBS college and a superspeciality hospital, but the MBBS proposal remains on hold, apparently because of infrastructure constraints.
At the institute’s annual convocation on July 4, Bengal health minister Sharadwat Mukherjee urged the authorities to launch an MBBS programme and offered support from the state government. An institute official said IIT Kharagpur’s primary focus remained engineering and that it would take time to consider starting an MBBS course.
The Syama Prasad Mookerjee institute conducted its first surgery in September last year, according to the report. The next formal milestone for the MD programme is the NMC’s decision on the institute’s application.
