Raising concerns over the new stipulations made by the National Commission for Indian System of Medicines (NCISM) with regard to appointment of fresh faculty members and purchase of modern apparatus and instruments by existing Ayurveda colleges, the ISM college management association in Kerala (KISMA) has said the commission should remove two clauses with respect to these two conditions.
Revealing the difficulties faced by the institutions to Pharmabiz, the president of the KISMA, Dr K Thulaseedharan Nair said the equipment and instruments purchased at the time of implementation of the regulations 2016 (MSR 2016) are still lying unutilized in all the institutions as they are all meant for modern medicine education. In Kerala, if they are used in the classrooms or hospitals, the institutions have to face the outrage of the modern medical associations. Each institution had to expend over Rs. 2 crore to purchase the equipment at the time of starting the colleges. All of them have become infructuous and cannot be utilized for the courses in Kerala.
He said the new instructions pose threats to the future of the existing Ayurveda colleges in Kerala, and unless their concerns are not addressed, many of the institutions have to close down after three or four years.
He said, the Ayurveda colleges in north India are utilizing these materials to teach their students, but in Kerala it is not possible as no modern medicine teacher is interested to teach the Ayurveda students in the ISM institutions.
“Many of the equipment and instruments being used by the modern medicine institutions were purchased to the Ayurveda medical colleges in their beginning, but they are lying underutilised or even unutilised since practice of modern medicine by Ayurveda doctors is not permissible in Kerala, unlike in other states. Now, a long list of different equipment and instruments, which are very costly, are mandated by the commission to be purchased by the Ayurveda institutions. We hope that this will also become unnecessary and infructuous, so we request the NCISM to kindly review this proposal at least in the case of existing Ayurveda medical colleges,” said Dr Thulaseedharan Nair.
Secondly, he said, at present the strength of faculty members of each institution is not less than 32, and 120 non-teaching staff, including the college and the teaching hospital. With the release of the new MSR by the commission, each college has to appoint seven more teaching staff and 20 more non-teaching staff additionally. The existing staff strength itself is unwieldy and underutilised. The additional financial commitment for the appointment of additional staff will come to the tune of minimum one crore rupees per year. If this is insisted, there is every chance for these self-financing Ayurveda medical colleges to head towards severe financial crisis, and eventually they may wind up their functioning.
On behalf of the association, KISMA, the president wanted the NCISM to exercise proper wisdom to review these two issues in the interest of the existing Ayurveda medical education in the country.
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