There is some good news for all the medical aspirants in India. The Indian Institute Of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT-Kharagpur), one of the most reputable engineering colleges in the country, is going to offer courses in medicine come 2019.
Reports suggest that the first batch will have 50 students.
The Times of India reports that the institute will seek permission from the Medical Council of India for a hospital with 400 beds and will be functional from mid-2018.
The news report also suggests that students who want to enrol for the course will not have to take the NEET exam and the institute will have a separate exam of it own.
Explaining the reason for starting medical courses in the IITs, deputy director of IIT-Kharagpur told Sriman Kumar Bhattacharyya told the newspaper, "The purpose is to cater to the needs of local patients as well as the institute. We want this to be a research hospital and patients should benefit from the technological developments at IIT."
IIT-Kharagpur already has the School of Medical Science and Technology which offers an an inter-disciplinary programme.
The talks of IIT Kharagpur having a Medical school has been going on for a long time. It was reported in 2015 that at that time the government had already spend Rs 230 crore on the project in 2014.
While IIT-Kharagpur will be the first to have a medical school, reports suggest that the other IITs will likely follow suit.
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