The All India Dental Students and Surgeons Association (AIDSA) has criticised the Telangana government for failing to comply with national medical education standards by not appointing dental faculty in any of its government medical college
Hyderabad:The All India Dental Students and Surgeons Association (AIDSA) has criticised the Telangana government for failing to comply with national medical education standards by not appointing dental faculty in any of its government medical colleges. According to the association, none of the 38 state-run medical colleges in Telangana has a functional dentistry department, despite central regulations mandating one for MBBS training. In response, AIDSA organised a nationwide protest on April 8 and 9 under the banner ‘Chalo DMEs’, during which students and recent graduates demonstrated outside Directorates of Medical Education (DMEs) across the country.
The association has referred to multiple official directives, including the Gazette of India notifications dated July 3, 2015, and March 10, 2017. These directives outline a standard staffing structure for dentistry departments in medical colleges, mandating the appointment of one professor, one associate professor, one assistant professor, a junior resident, four dental technicians, and one clerk. These requirements apply to all medical colleges admitting either 100 or 250 MBBS students annually. Although the regulations allow faculty to be drawn from existing dental colleges, this provision only applies if such institutions are formally affiliated— a condition that remains unfulfilled in most cases across Telangana.
In a formal representation submitted to the Telangana DME, AIDSA stressed that oral health is an essential component of general medical education and should not be treated as optional. "We are simply asking for what the law already provides," read one of their protest posters. The association underlined that the issue is not symbolic but regulatory, pointing out that despite the clear national guidelines, no recruitment has taken place in Telangana under this category. They also noted that other states, including Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, have already begun implementing these provisions, while Telangana continues to lag, with the delay persisting for years.
