A three-member team of the Medical Council of India (MCI) visited the Santh Bhima Bhoi Medical College and Hospital here on Monday to assess whether the institution had required infrastructure and other facilities to get permission to hold classes for the 2019-20 academic session.

The visiting MCI team comprised Rezaul Karim of Sagore Dutta Medical College, Calcutta, Dheeraj Saxena of SMS Medical College, Jaipur, and Saroj Kothari of GR Medical College, Gwalior.

This is the first time that an MCI team visited the medical college, which was dedicated to the people of Balangir on August 31.

As the team members went around the main building of the medical college, its hostels and other areas, dean of the institute Lalit Kumar Meher accompanied them. Led by Karim, the team also visited the main hospital campus, including the medicine ward, surgery ward, TB department, casualty and the maternity and child hospital.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Meher said: “The team took note of the hospital’s infrastructure, syllabus and its various wards.”

Though the team is yet to submit their assessment of the MCI, Meher said that the members were satisfied with facilities available at the medical college.

In 1999, then chairman of Western Odisha Development Council Narasingha Mishra, who is also the Congress MLA from Balangir and leader of the Opposition, had pleaded for setting up the medical college and hospital in Balangir.

The development council had provided 25 acres for the medical college near Gandhrel on the town’s outskirt. But it had remained a non-starter. The UPA government had in 2014 decided to set up medical colleges at four places in Odisha — Koraput, Balangir, Baripada and Balasore.

Admission of students to the colleges in Koraput and Baripada had already begun in last academic session.