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Introduction: Education baron D Y Patil exercise clout. One State team faults his college, another sent back by the CM
It was perhaps the last file Chief Minister Sushilkumar Shinde signed before the code of conduct came into force on Tuesday. Ignoring objections raised by the Medical Education Department, he cleared NOCs for granting deemed university status to Kolhapur’s D.Y. Patil Medical College and Nagpur’s Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College.
This, despite the fact that the Kolhapur college — controlled by senior Congress leader D.Y. Patil — has frequently run into controversies. A highly-placed source said Shinde had little choice: He got a call from ‘‘a top NCP leader’’.
When Patil’s college moved the application for a NOC, it went through four bureaucrats, culminating in Principal Secretary G.S. Gill, who clearly said the move would be against the state’s interest. And if the CM had noted the critical observations (see box), he would have had little choice but to reject the application. Gill declined to comment on Shinde’s decision. ‘‘It is a policy decision of the government,’’ he said.
Deemed university status, experts say, is granted to institutions that achieve some degree of excellence or undertake original research. D.Y. Patil College has none of the merits.
A team sent by Governor Mohammed Fazal in November 2003 had found the college severely lacking in infrastructure. After protests from the Patils, Fazal had agreed to send another team. But after finding locked wards, the second team was recalled by Shinde in May 2004, sources said.
In defence, Shinde today said: ‘‘I felt it was not advisable to inspect medical colleges under police protection...That’s why I told the medical team to abandon the mission.’’
Fazal had ordered the probe following an investigation by The Indian Express on July 22, 2003, on commercialisation of medical education. On his orders, Medical Education Minister Digvijay Khanvilkar had set up committees to inspect medical colleges.
Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College — controlled by NCP MP Datta Meghe — had got a clean chit, but not the Kolhapur college. D.Y. Patil’s son Sanjay Patil claimed all actions against his college were ‘‘politically motivated’’. ‘‘Despite good work, we were harassed for obvious political reasons.’’
Shinde had on Wednesday said that the NOCs were ‘‘in keeping with the policy of the Centre to grant autonomy to private medical colleges’’.
A senior Medical Education Department official recalled how a year ago, D. Y. Patil Medical College in Navi Mumbai had obtained an NOC from the Higher and Technical Education Department, which was not even connected with the affairs of the MED.
The bureaucrat pointed out that
if deemed university status was granted to D Y Patil and Jawaharlal Nehru
Medical College, it would be “against the spirit” of the Maharashtra University
of Health Science Act (MUHS), which was promoted for the development of
an integrated medical-education system. The setting up of deemed universities
– more than half a dozen education barons who run many of the State’s 21
medical colleges want NOCs-will defeat the purpose of the MUHS, the official
said.
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