Bans new admissions saying that the institution has failed to fulfill the criteria
set by the IMCC Act
The Government Unani Medical College at Basaveshwaranagar
finds itself on the ventilator with the Department of Ayush (Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani,
Siddha and Homeopathy), which comes under the Union ministry of health
and family welfare, denying the 36-year-old institution the permission to enrol
students for the academic year 2011-12.
The Centres move, which comes at a time when efforts are being made to popularise
Unani medicine, has put the state government in a piquant situation as the college
cannot fill the 50 seats for the under-graduate course.
Established in 1975, the college faced its first major roadblock after a report
submitted by a team of the Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM), which had
visited the institution in April this year, concluded that it did not fulfill the
criteria recommended under the Indian Medicine Central Council (IMCC) Act, 1970.
The team had found that there were only 23 eligible teachers against the minimum
requirement of 29.The college had submitted a list of 47 teachers, but they found
24 of them ineligible. The report said that the team detected several shortages
at the Sri Jayachamarajendra Institute of Indian Medicine Unani Hospital the teaching
hospital of the Unani Medical College.
The Department of Ayush had given the college a chance to come out with its explanations
on August 9, but they could not convince the former to reverse its decision. Now,
it has granted time till November 30 to fill the gaps so that CCIM can carry out
another inspection in December or January in order to reconsider the decision. Meanwhile
H. Gopalkrishne Gowda, principal secretary of the Health and Family Welfare Department
(Medical Education) has written to the secretary of the Department of Ayush, endorsing
the medical colleges claim that the findings mentioned in the CCIM report were not
correct.
Principal of the college, Dr. Iqbal H. M. Memon said, It is the fault of the screening
committee. They have not taken into consideration the facts and figures given by
us. Many colleges with worse infrastructure than ours have received the Centres
approval. Ours is the best Unani College in Karnataka.
Director of Ayush, G. N. Srikantaiah, also blamed the CCIM team which inspected
the institution. The team did not submit a proper report to the Central government.
They claim that some of the hospital records were not produced. But the CCIM team
did not record everything. They might have been casual about it.
Courtesy: Times of India
