This image includes an AI generated image (img: Midjourney, Facebook/Rushikesh Patel)

In a query raised in the state assembly over the amount collected through bonds from medical students, state health minister Rushikesh Patel has replied that the government recovered bonds worth ₹647.65 cr in 6,082 cases of MBBS students opting out of mandatory rural service of a year.

As villages experience a shortage of medical staff, MBBS students receiving government education are delegated a rural service for a year, mandated under a bond.

Colleges collect ₹20 lakh over the student’s unwillingness to provide these rural medical services.

Gujarat Medical Education & Research Society (GMERS)-run and independent colleges are also following the bond system.

Doctors carrying out their internships in MBBS courses are provided with a provisional registration certificate by the Gujarat Medical Council (GMC).

Their final registration is based on the MBBS provisional degree given by their universities after the completion of their internships.

Clarifying over the medical seats in the state, Patel added that students in MBBS courses are inducted by the admission committee for professional undergraduate courses, Gandhinagar, through online admission on the NEET-based merit system.

Gujarat currently runs 39 medical colleges, including six government, 13 GMERS-run, three municipal corporation-run, 16 independent, a deemed university, and an All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Rajkot.

Government medical colleges house 1,400 students, while other colleges include 5,650 students.

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