Madhya Pradesh government has appointed deans in Gwalior, Datia and Shivpuri medical colleges ignoring the norms of the National Medical Commission (NMC), which has put the students' future in dark.
Dr Sameer Gupta, Dr Dinesh Udainia and Dr Akshay Nigam have been assigned to medical colleges in Gwalior, Datia and Shivpuri medical colleges respectively as part-time deans while they are already posted as heads of the department (HoD) in Gajra Raja Medical College (GRMC), -the oldest medical college in the state. The trio are yet to resign from the post of HoDs of orthopaedics, Neurology and Radiotherapy departments respectively.
Datia and Shivpuri are around 100 kilometres away from Gwalior and Nigam and Udainia are working on both the posts. As per NMC norms, one cannot be given an additional charge of dean when he is regularly posted at another college or another post.
Ironically, both Medical Education department and Divisional Commissioner of Gwalior shifting bucks on each other over who issued transfer orders of these doctors.
"The posting of the deans and faculties in medical colleges come under the divisional commissioner (DC) of the related region, the ME department does not post them," Nishant Warbade, the commissioner of medical education (ME) told The Pioneer.
On the other hand, DC Gwalior Ashish Saxena, who is the ex officio chairman of the autonomous committees of medical colleges, said that the deans and faculties were posted by the department of ME.
Notably, Gupta and Nigam are running their own private hospital in the names of their wives in Gwalior city while Udainia visits another private hospital. However, the NMC and the State government donot permit the doctors to do so. As per the NMC's rules, the posting of the deans shall be regular, not 'part-time'. In this situation, if the NMC cancels the permission, the future of the students may in the dark.
The NMC was constituted by an act of Parliament known as the national medical commission act, 2019, which came into force on September 2020, dissolving the board of governors in an impression of the medical council of India.