CALCUTTA, 27 December 2004 — The West Bengal government has offered to send expelled Non-Resident Indian medical students abroad for studies.
As many as 69 NRI MBBS students — each had paid a capitation fee of one million rupees to the Left Front government — were thrown out of two state-run medical colleges in West Bengal on the orders of the Supreme Court of India this month.
Squirming in embarrassment, Marxist Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya offered to send the evicted NRI students to China, Russia or Nepal to complete their medical course and become doctors even as they continue with their hunger strike.
“We have received proposals from medical colleges not only in Nepal but also in China and Russia. Of course medical institutions in China and Russia will be very expensive compared to Nepal’s. The students have been told about the proposals” said Buddhadev.
“Those wanting to pursue medical courses abroad can avail of the offer. The state government will act as facilitators”, the CM added.
Buddhadev and his Health Minister, Surya Kant Mishra, are facing a barrage of criticism for the state government’s brazen cash-for-medical seats scheme which boomeranged in the High Court and apex court destroying the educational plans of NRI boys and girls.
Besides the media, the state government is under attack from the State Human Rights Commission and opposition parties like the Trinamool Congress, Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party over the capitation fee scandal.
Gargi Bhattacharya, one of the expelled NRI MBBS students, said: “We have not been officially intimated about opportunities in China or Russia. We were only told about a medical college in Nepal which is only two years old and yet to be recognized by the Nepal government.”
“Forget China and Russia. Even if we agree to go to Nepal to complete our medical course, we will have to take a Medical Council of India test for registration and practicing medicine in India”, she said angrily.
Before offering to send them abroad, Buddhadev had said that he would make arrangements for their admission to the West Bengal University for Technology (WBUT) for a bio-medical engineering course but NRI students flatly rejected the offer.
Significantly, an offer by state BJP leader, Tatagatha Roy, to get the dismissed NRI MBBS students admitted to medical colleges in BJP-ruled states like Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh or Jharkhand has also come a cropper.
Trying to exploit the fiasco, Tatagatha announced with great fanfare last week that he had spoken to BJP chief ministers and extracted a promise from them to bail out Bengali NRI medical students but nothing happened.
With no solution in sight, the state government is refunding the one million rupees capitation fee it charged NRIs for 50 percent of seats reserved for them in two medical colleges.
The vacancies are being filled by students from the merit list of the 2003 Joint Entrance Examination results who went to court against the communist government’s controversial scheme to admit NRI students against cash payments.
In July 2003, the state government issued a public notification reserving 50 percent of 208 seats in the two medical colleges for NRI students at one million rupees per seat.
Ignoring protests by students who had cleared the tough JEE, the government admitted 104 NRI students. The meritorious students went to the Calcutta High Court which summarily scrapped the NRI quota altogether.
But the state government appealed to the Supreme Court which slashed the NRI quotas from 50 percent to 15 percent resulting in mass expulsions.
