ISLAMABAD: About 100 students denied admission by the Federal Medical and Dental College (FMDC) demonstrated outside the Parliament House on Tuesday.

`We cleared the admission test of the college and figure on its merit list, and yet we are not being admitted, apparently for some bureaucratic reasons,` a girl speaking for the students told Dawn.

Some lawmakers met the protesters as they arrived marching from the FMDC, located in Chak Shahzad, to the parliament and promised to take up the issue with the FMDC and the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC).

PTI MNA Dr Muhammad Azhar Khan Jadoon, along with another MNA, listened to their grievance that the FMDC put up the merit list on April 22 but its doors are still closed to them.

`We have been persisting withthe managements of FMDC and PMDC since that date but bureaucratic matters seem to be holding up our admission,` said the students who worry that if FMDC did not start classes on June 30 the students of merit will lose one academic year.

According to their unofficial spokesperson, PMDC officials claim that the FMDC lacks the faculty for the courses it offers and has other deficiencies and so cannot be allowed to start classes.

On the other hand, she said, the FMDC management claims it has resolved all the issues and the PMDC should allow them to start classes.

`Last week we met Minister National Health Services (NHS) Saira Afzal Tarar and Secretary NHS Ayub Sheikh for we are suffering the miscommunication between PMDC and FMDC. But the issue could not be resolved, she disclosed.

Another student said that they didn`t want to protest but had no option because they would lose one year if the tangle is not resolved in time.

It is said the FMDC is the brainchild of a well-known bureaucrat of the PPP era.

His claim that a medical college canbe openedinthefederal capital without any funding led to the establishment of the FMDCin the building of the Federal Drug Surveillance Laboratory (FDSL).

Health experts had criticised the decision at the time. But the PPP prime minister of the day went ahead with the plan and inaugurated the college on Feb 28, 2012, which was placed under the Cabinet Division.

Problems of funding, faculty and admission soon arose and the PMDC took notice of induction of 22 allegedly fake and bogus doctors in the faculty.

In March 2015 that issue seemed to have been resolved by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif by declaring the FMDC a `constituent` of Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University (Pims).

After that process of admissions in FMDC again started.

But an advertisement by the PMDC that the university`s status in law did not allow it to run graduation courses brought the process to a halt.

Last week, the Ministry of NHS issued a notification allowing the Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Medical University (Pims) to do that by putting it in the first schedule of the Pakistan Medical Dental Council Ordinance 1992.

However, the dilemma and uncertainty of the students cleared for admission continues.

Vice Chancellor Pims Dr JavedAkram, while talking to Dawn, said that the notification should put an end to the controversy surrounding the FMDC `as it has been handed over to Pims and all deficiencies have been addressed` `We have requested PMDC six times to send its team to visit the FMDC and allow us to start classes. Since I don`t want to do that without approval of PMDC, I have requested PMDC to allow us provisionally to start the classes and send its (inspection) team whenever convenient to it,` he said.

`Unfortunately PMDC is mum on the issue and is not replying to our requests which are sent in writing. PMDC should either allow us to start the classes or just refuse to end the issue because future of students is at stake,` Dr Akram said.

PMDC Registrar Dr Shaista Faisal, however, denied that the regulatory body received any letter from FMDC for inspection. As far as Pims having been included in schedule I was concerned, she said, `I will look into it` She said that PMDC had stopped the FMDC from further admissions two years ago. `It should not have done that without our approval. We also care about the students but cannot allow any irregularity,` she added.