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The Pharmacy Council of India (PCI), which has set a final deadline of March 1, 2026 for the full implementation of the Aadhaar Enabled Biometric Attendance System (AEBAS), has intensified its crackdown on non-compliant institutions.
According to recent circulars, the Council has warned that any institution failing to complete registration and onboard all faculty members will be placed in a ‘no-admission’ category for the 2026–27 academic session. This stringent measure follows observations that many institutions have yet to sync their faculty data with the central DIGI-PHARMed portal.
While the PCI aims to eliminate ‘ghost faculty’ through real-time tracking, the mandate has triggered significant concern regarding the financial sustainability of regional colleges. In response to these directives, Dr. B.L. Dass, Professor and Dean of Om Sadashiva College of Pharmacy in Jharkhand, has submitted a formal appeal to the president of the PCI. The letter highlights a critical disconnect between the Council’s rigid staffing quotas and the economic realities faced by institutions in Grade II towns that struggle with fluctuating enrolment.
The core of Dr. Dass’s appeal is a request for the PCI to link faculty strength requirements to actual student enrolment rather than sanctioned intake capacity. Under current guidelines, the teacher-to-student ratio is fixed at 1:20 based on the maximum possible seats. For a college sanctioned for 60 B.Pharm and 60 D.Pharm students, regulations mandate a staff of 19 teachers (principal + 18 teachers) to cover a combined capacity of 360 students, comprising 240 in the four-year degree and 120 in the two-year diploma programmes.
Dr. Dass points out that when admission numbers fall short of these sanctioned caps, maintaining such a large faculty becomes a financial crisis that threatens the institution's survival. The appeal argues that calculating the minimum teacher requirement based on actual student strength is a ‘reasonable and fair’ adjustment. This would allow colleges to maintain the integrity of the 1:20 teaching ratio while ensuring that the administrative payroll reflects the college’s real-world revenue and workload.
Beyond financial survival, the Dean contends that this reform would spare money for infrastructure development. Many institutions in Grade II towns, like Deoghar, are currently forced to prioritize an inflated payroll over campus upgrades. By aligning staffing with actual enrolment, colleges could redirect those funds toward modernizing laboratories, expanding digital libraries, and purchasing advanced research equipment, ultimately raising the standard of education for students in rural and semi-urban areas.
Further, the appeal emphasizes that a more flexible staffing policy is essential to save the jobs of many hundreds of M.Pharm and Pharm.D holders. If regional colleges are forced to close due to the combined pressure of biometric mandates and inflexible staffing costs, it would lead to mass unemployment among highly qualified professionals. A viable financial model ensures these educators can remain employed in their home regions, keeping pharmacy education accessible in developing districts.
The letter, also copied to the secretary to the Minister of Health, Government of India, serves as a plea for a balanced regulatory approach. As the March 1 deadline for AEBAS compliance is over, the pharmacy education sector is calling for a policy shift that pairs transparency with economic common sense. For institutions like Om Sadashiva College, the goal is to ensure that the path to compliance does not result in the total collapse of pharmacy education in India’s smaller towns.
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