The Kashmir Scenario network
SKIMS Medical College (JVC) Bemina Srinagar is bypassing all the prescribed rules and regulations drawn by Medical Council of India. The series of blunders committed by the said institution are innumerable and blatant. According to MCI norms, any medical college or medical institution shall be housed in a unitary campus near its teaching hospital having room for future expansion. However the existing medical colleges shall make efforts to have their teaching hospital within a radius of five kilometers of the campus. The prescribed efforts have never been taken by the JVC administration. No effort has been displayed to increase the bed strength so that the department of surgery and medicine could have been established as per MCI norms, rather than relying on 100 beds shown in SKIMS Soura which is also 12 & 12 means 24 kms distance to and fro and students have to waste two hrs in coming and going for teaching. While as per MCI efforts are to be made to have teaching hospital within radius of 5KM.
Another MCI norm is that the accommodation shall be provided for – Principal/Dean’s office (36 Sq.m.), staff room (54 sq.m.), college council room (80 Sq.m.) office superintendent’s room (10 Sq.m.), Office (150 Sq.m.), record room (100 Sq.m.), examination hall (200 Sq.m.), separate common room for Male and Female students with attached toilets (30 Sq.m.each), cafeteria (40-50 Sq.m.).
However in gross violation of the said MCI Norms, No staff room, no College council room, insufficient office room, record room, examination hall are prevalent grim veracities ere. There is no separate common room for boys and girls.
According to MCI regulations, every medical college or Medical Institution shall have a College Council comprising of the Head of departments as members and Principal/Dean as Chairperson. The Council shall meet at least four times in a year to draw up the details of curriculum and training programme, enforcement of discipline and other academic matters. The Council shall also organise interdepartmental meetings like grand rounds, statistical meetings and clinico pathological meetings including periodical research review in the Institution regularly.
While as in JVC there is no College council, No Inter-departmental meetings, No statistical meetings, No grand rounds, No clinic-pathological meetings and periodic research review. In another gross flouting of given MCI norms, There is in no staff reading room, No room for draftaries , Book binders, Micro-film reading room, Video room, Journal room.
On the other side of the spectrum, the MCI lays down that there shall be a minimum of four lecture theatres of gallery type in the college or Medical Institution three with seating capacity for 60 students and one with seating capacity for 125 students. These shall be built with good acoustics. Lecture Theatres shall also be provided with necessary independent audio visual aids including over-head projector, slide projector and a microphone. These lecture theatres are to be shared by various departments.
New Lecture halls are under construction in JVC Bemina Srinagar, but unfortunately they can accommodate only 50 students. The administration has never bothered to keep a provision of expansion and crores of rupees wasted on construction of lecture halls which are smaller than the ones constructed by the private trust earlier.
The MCI norms also state that there shall be an auditorium where 250-350 persons could be seated and an examination hall, preferably air-conditioned for at least 125 students. Since last 14 years administration of JVC never bothered to provide such facility within the campus.
Accommodation shall be provided for Artist and Medical illustrators and Modellers. Facilities for microphotography and mounting shall be provided. However, no such facility exists at the JVC Campus which has affected the research work and talented faculty is not able to prove their skill.
Pertinently, JVC was run by a private trust and was existing as JVCMS in year 1998 when it was taken over by the Govt of Jammu and Kashmir to provide better Health services to the poor and needy. The Institution had an intake capacity of 100 students for MBBS when it started in year 1989.
SKIMS Soura being a Deemed university, it was attached to it with all Administrative control. Keeping in view the career of the students perusing studies there, this decision was taken to prevent its de-recognition as the private trust could not carry on it due to financial problems. This decision did not prove good for the institution as it has not grown at all and gives typical look of a sub-district hospital.
SKIMS Soura has been deputing one senior Faculty member as Principal from Soura. This way not only his department suffers, but also the SKIMS medical College Bemina. This grim fact can be verified from the records and it can be checked how many times in a month a principal was attending SKIMS Bemina, hardly 5-7 days a month. This remote control from Soura has ensured that this college should not grow with an initial strength of around 280 bed is presently having only 250 beds and since last 14 years they have not bothered to increase the bed strength to 400 a pre requisite for MCI Guidelines for a Medical college of 50 student intake and an increase of student intake to 100 which Health Ministry has proposed is a distant dream under such circumstances.
Disclosures suggest that JVC has flouted all the prescribed MCI rules and regulations blatantly.