A Central team will be visiting Tamil Nadu soon to finalise the details for the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, which was announced for the State in the Union Budget, according to Union Minister for Health Jagat Prakash Nadda.
Speaking to the press following a review meeting conducted by the Union government in the State, Mr. Nadda said, “Along with the AIIMS, work on the National Institute of Ageing will also start soon.”
Appreciating the Tamil Nadu government for their implementation of schemes, he said, “The government has utilised almost all the money allotted for Japanese Encephalitis and has vaccinated 93 per cent of the target population.”
He also announced that there would be an additional three districts from the State included in the Japanese Encephalitis program, making it a total of eight districts.
Speaking at the review meeting, C. Vijaya Baskar, State Minister for Health, said, “The budget allotment in the State for public health has been doubled to Rs. 7,004 crore. In medical education, 610 MBBS seats have been added in the last 2 years, taking the number to 2555.”
Our Special Correspondent from Vellore writes: Earlier, speaking at the south zone Vice-Chancellors’ conference at Vellore, the Union Minister said that the Central government did not politicise education, and wanted to make it more autonomous and independent.
With experts raising concerns over politicisation of education, capitation and corruption at the conference, which was inaugurated by Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala, Mr. Nadda assured that the present government would look at issues in higher education from the academic angle, rather than political.
“The country has a federal system but we give more autonomy to States. We want to cooperate with States, whichever political party is ruling,” he said. On curbing capitation and corruption in education, the Union Minister said a strong regulatory system was essential.
Assuring that autonomy in its real sense would be maintained, he said that there should be a balance between quality and quantity in education.
He also called for developing a group of academics to take care of the roadmap that education has to take.
VIT Chancellor G. Viswanathan said that presently, there were too many regulatory agencies in the country. “In our experience, these agencies instead of expanding higher education are trying to curb expansion,” he said.
He said affiliation, approval, NOC, permission and recognition are five things that are governing higher education in India. “In the United States, none of them exists. Still, it is considered leader in higher education. We should work out a system that is suitable to our country,” he added.
