Bengal’s first private medical college expects to open its doors to students in four months with the Medical Council of India giving permission after three rejections in the past two years.

“We have approved the KPC Foundation’s application. We will forward the approval to the central government, which will issue the letter of permission,” A.R.N. Setalvad, the secretary of the medical council, told Metro from New Delhi on Monday.

The college will come up on a 45-acre plot in Jadavpur where the charitable trust already runs a 350-bed hospital. Classes could begin as early as in September, though the KPC Foundation has yet to decide the fee structure and admission norms.

“We have yet to receive a formal intimation from the central government, but we are aiming to start the medical college from the next session, starting September. We will finalise the tuition fees and other charges after discussions with the state government,” said Kali Pradip Chaudhuri, the US-based medical practitioner who heads the KPC Foundation.

An MBBS student in a state-run medical college in Bengal pays Rs 9,000 a year as tuition fees, but private medical colleges elsewhere are nearly 40 times more expensive. The cost of an MBBS degree from a private institution is Rs 3.5-4 lakh annually.

Expensive or not, Bengal needs more medical colleges. “We need at least 18, as against the nine that the state has as of now. More private parties should come forward to start medical colleges,” the director of medical education, S. Banerjee, said.

Two state-run medical colleges have been planned in Kalyani and Malda. Apollo Hospitals intends to set up one in the city.

The KPC Charitable Foundation first applied for the MCI’s approval in 2006. Three inspections later, the verdict was that the faculty was not up to scratch. The proposal was cleared after a fourth inspection last month.

Chaudhuri said the first batch would have 150 students. “We intend to increase the number of beds in our hospital to 750. That will be done in phases over the next five years. We will increase the number of MBBS seats after that.”

The campus housed the KS Roy TB Hospital before the government handed it to the KPC Foundation in 2002. “Although it is a private hospital, the land was provided by the state government,” a health department official said.

The foundation would have applied for permission to set up a medical college even earlier, had it not faced encroachment. “We could not do mutation till 2006, which is why we were unable to apply for permission to set up a college,” Chaudhuri said.

The foundation has so far invested Rs 300 crore in the project, including the hospital.

Any organisation that wants to set up a medical college in Bengal needs permission from four sources: the state health department, the University of Health Sciences, the MCI and the Union health ministry.

In the past four years, the state government received only three proposals, including the one from the KPC Foundation. The other two have been rejected.

“We look at a host of factors, such as the teacher-student ratio, infrastructure and research facilities, before we clear a proposal. We are extremely cautious before giving the go-ahead,” an MCI official said.