Shillong, July 5 (IANS): Medical students of the North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute for Health and Medical Sciences (NEIGRIHMS) here in Meghalaya today resumed their normal classes after a week-long agitation.
Over 200 students were on an indefinite strike from June 27 after learning that the MBBS graduate course of the institute was yet to be recognised by the Medical Council of India (MCI).
"Normal classes have resumed in the medical institute after the students called off their indefinite strike last (Monday) evening," NEIGRIHMS spokesman Bhaskar Borgohain told IANS.
The medical students called off their agitation after assurances from Meghalaya Governor RS Mooshahary and NEIGRIHMS director ME Yeolekar that the issue of recognition of courses will be taken up.
"The director has assured them of administrative decisions and steps to expedite the process of recruiting professors in the institute," Borgohain said.
The MCI has refused to recognise the graduate course offered at NEIGRIHMS as it failed to meet the MCI guidelines.
According to the MCI guidelines, a medical institute has to have a minimum of 69 faculty members. But NEIGRIHMS has only 32 faculty members at present.
Designed on the lines of the premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at New Delhi, and Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) at Chandigarh, the NEIGRIHMS is the first and only super-speciality hospital in the northeast.
But the institute is facing sharp criticism over the shortage of medical faculty.
"There is an acute shortage of medical faculty and at present the faculty members are also taking on the job of five doctors, both attending to the patients and giving lectures to students which is humanly impossible," a faculty member told IANS on condition of anonymity.
