2 pvt medical colleges ‘bestowed’ special favours

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 22

The Manohar Lal Khattar government is all set to give a free hand to two private medical colleges in terms of deciding their fee structure. These two medical colleges were given similar concession last year, that was in violation of the proposal made by the state’s Department of Medical Education and Research (DMER).

Sources said the DMER had prepared a departmental report to bring the MM PG Medical College, Mullana, and the SGT PG Medical College, Budhera, Gurugram, under the ambit of the Haryana Private Health Sciences Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admissions, Fixation of Fees and Maintenance of Educational Standards) Act, 2012, by amending this legislation during the just- concluded Budget session.

However, the Khattar government, which was accused last year of allowing the Budhera college to conduct admissions to MBBS course on its own despite specific orders of the Supreme Court directing to follow a central counselling procedure, and was also seen favouring the Mullana college, which allegedly ignored participation in government-monitored counselling, again gave them a free hand to decide their own fee structure.

This is despite the fact that the DMER proposal mentioned that a public interest litigation, “Court on its own motion versus state of Haryana, CWP 20426 of 2016)”, was pending before the High Court, whereby the state government had been alleged to have wilfully left the SGT PG Medical College out of combined counselling last year to provide it undue benefit.

Documents accessed by The Tribune revealed that in a meeting held at the Chief Minister’s residence on March 2 to discuss the proposal of the DMER, officials took a stand that since the Assembly session was up to March 10, it might not be possible to bring out amendments in the relevant legislation, and thus, the state could not intervene in regulating the fee structure in these colleges at this stage.

The meeting was presided over by Khattar and attended by Advocate General Baldev Raj Mahajan, Additional Chief Secretary (DMER) Dhanpat Singh, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister Rajesh Khullar, Director, DMER, Ravi Parkash Gupta, then Joint Director Amarjit Singh and OSD to Chief Minister Neeraj Daftudar.

The proposal by the DMER said after the passing of the Act in 2012, the Director, DMER, after serving notices to the two medical colleges and considering their replies, passed an order to bring them under the Act on May 5, 2013.

On an appeal filed by these medical colleges, the Principal Secretary (DMER), decided the case in their favour on the plea that admission to these colleges was governed under the Haryana Private Universities Act.

The DMER maintained in its proposal that since the Central government had issued fresh guidelines for admission to PG courses (MD/MS/MDS) through combined counselling only and had included deemed as well private universities in it, it would be appropriate to amend the Act to include these colleges. However, it was decided against this citing shortage of time.

Meanwhile, the MM PG Medical College produced another letter by the Central government which allowed private medical colleges to fill half of their seats on their own under management quota.

When contacted, Additional Chief Secretary (DMER) Dhanpat Singh said clarification had been sought from the Central government with regard to management quota seats and in so far as amendment to the Act to bring these colleges under fee fixation by the government was concerned, the government had enough time and could come out with an ordinance.