A three-member team consisting of two members of the Central Council for Indian Medicine (CCIM) came to the NRS Government Ayurvedic College to conduct the annual inspection on Wednesday. Team members Devadatta Batlekar from Mumbai, Sivaswarup Sharma from Gwalior and R.K.Sharma from Jaipur interacted with the college principal, faculty and inpatients of the teaching hospital . Permission to make admission to the Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses conducted by the college will be granted by the CCIM on the basis of the report submitted by the team.
The CCIM has not granted permission to the Vijayawada college for two consecutive years (2011-13) primarily on the ground that the college did not have the stipulated number of professors, assistant professors and lecturers. The facilities and the land in which the college is were also not as per norms. Out of the seven ayruvedic colleges in the State, CCIM granted permission only to the BRKR Government Ayurvedic College in Hyderabad and the SV Ayurvedic College sponsored by the Tirupati Tirumala Devasthanams (TTD) in Tirupati last year. As there has been no transfers or recruitment since then Vijayawada college is unlikely to be granted permission for the third consecutive year. According to the CCIM website several Ayurvedic colleges in the country have not been given permission to conduct UG and PG courses last academic year.
Five out of seven colleges were not given permission in Andhra Pradesh. Similarly, 20 out of 61 in Maharashtra, 20 out of 52 in Karnataka, 6 out of 15 in MP, 5 out of 12 in Gujarat, 6 out of 8 in Bihar, 5 out of 14 in Kerala, 4 out of 12 in UP and 3 out of 7 in Odisa were not given permission to make admissions in 2012-13.
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Detractors of CCIM say that the norms favoured the new private colleges resulting in several old traditional colleges being denied permission. Many of the older colleges were being forced to close down leading to loss of knowledge base.
Staff pattern being implemented by the CCIM was similar to that of the Medical Council of India that gives permission for Allopathy medical colleges. This was totally unnecessary for Ayurvedic colleges, critics say.