 "Online application for new medical colleges made mandatory")
The Union Health Ministry's move is aimed at making the entire process more transparent.
However, the existing manual submission of applications will also continue along with the online mode, which will be an "add-on procedure".
"The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has introduced a new procedure for submitting application or proposal. It is an add-on procedure which will run parallel with conventional procedure of manual submission of applications.
"As per the revised procedure, an online application is mandatory and comes into effect from August 1 this year," an official statement said.
The Health Ministry had put up a public notice regarding this in the first week of the month. A ministry official had told PTI that the process was just the beginning towards the online path and various other processes are proposed to be automated in the next one year to bring in more transparency.
Applicants or colleges desirous of filling an application for purpose of establishment of new medical colleges or increase intake capacity of MBBS seats will have to visit the Health Ministry's website and go to the link of medical education (online application system).
They will have to undergo a one-time registration using a valid e-mail address, login, read and accept terms of online application, fill up the columns of the application which are enabled, upload a scanned copy of essentially certificate and demand draft, upload the application and obtain an acknowledgement of the online application.
The applicants also have to file a manual copy of the complete application as prescribed by the Medical Council of India (MCI) regulations, along with all valid documents in original.