Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) was in for some good news, a kind of a breather after Medical Council of India’s (MCI) recent denial to the MBBS course of the institution.

On Sunday, IGIMS director Arun Kumar received a letter from MCI on Friday approving one more seat in the MCh (master of chirurgical) course in urology and DM (doctor of medicine) course in gastroenterology in the health hub. Earlier, there was only one seat in both the courses.

“However, we still don’t know whether this permission is applicable from this session or next session. We have sent a letter to MCI for clarification. We hope to get a response within 1-2 days,” said the IGIMS director.

IGIMS is the only institution in Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha, which runs the MCh course in urology and DM course in gastroenterology.

Officials of IGIMS and the health department are trying hard to convince MCI to change its earlier decision on the institution’s MBBS course.

Sources said the IGIMS director and principal secretary, health, Vyasji would meet MCI officials at the Delhi headquarters on Monday to present their stand on why the institute must be permitted to admit students to its MBBS course.

Earlier, chief minister Nitish Kumar had shot off a letter to Union health and family welfare minister Ghulam Nabi Azad, requesting him to reconsider the MCI’s decision to deny IGIMS permission to admit MBBS students this year.

Nitish had promised in his letter to MCI that all the deficiencies would be rectified in a time-bound manner.

Sources said IGIMS has filled up many vacant teachers’ posts, one of main reasons behind MCI’s denial of admission to the MBBS course in IGIMS.

“Recently, eight senior residents and 12 other faculty members have been recruited at IGIMS. At the time of MCI’s inspection, there was around 32 to 35 per cent deficiency in faculty, which has now dropped to 16 per cent after the recruitments. So we hope that MCI would reconsider its decision,” said an official of IGIMS adding: “We had shortage of faculty in departments like tuberculosis and chest, psychiatry, forensic medicine, physiology, orthopaedics and obstetrics and gynaecology. Twelve teachers have been recruited in these departments.”

Another source said: “Monday’s meeting with MCI officials could be fruitful because the last time the IGIMS director met MCI officials on June 12, he had told them that recruitments would soon be made against the vacancies. This time, the director would show them the list of faculty members appointed recently. So there is a every possibility that MCI would give its nod for the admission to the MBBS course.”