MUHS asks Governor to intervene

MUHS asks Governor to intervene
EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

NASHIK, JAN 4: The Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) has described the recent government move to strip it of power to hold the Common Entrance Test (CET) as an "encroachment" on its rights and has sought the intervention of the Chancellor. The MUHS has written to the Governor Dr P C Alexander (who is also the Chancellor) to intervene in the matter to protect the autonomy of the university. The letter has described the government's move as an encroachment on its right. The MUHS has also written to the government on the issue stating that it be allowed to conduct the CET. An MUHS official seeking anonymity said that during a litigation in 1998, the State Government had told the Supreme Court that since the MUHS had been established by an Act of law, holding examinations was the jurisdiction of the university.

According to another official of the MUHS, the move of the government would create legal hassles as according to the Act, the powers of conducting the CET rested with the university. He said that though the bureaucracy was in favour of the MUHS conducting the CET, the minister for Public Health Digvijay Khanvilkar was against it.

Former Health Minister Dr Daulatrao Aher (BJP) who had taken lead in establishing the MUHS in Nashik during his tenure told The Indian Express that the government was behaving in a vindictive manner. He pointed out that the MUHS had been established as per directives from the central government to provide quality education to medical students.

"The university is not a Zunka Bhakar Kendra" Dr Aher said, pointing out that it did not belonged to him or the BJP but to Maharashtra. He said that the government's move would affect medical students all over the State. "I don't mind if the university is shifted to Baramati, Kolhapur or Nagpur" he said, "but they should not indulge in finishing it off".

He added that the government should rise above party politics in the interest of medical students and the health of the State. The MUHS, incidentally, was Dr Aher's dream project in Nashik and it was established in 1998.

It is still housed in a rented building of the Nashik Municipal Corporation and its own premises is under construction near Mhasrul on the outskirts of Nashik. The university has been facing problems like scarcity of staff and resources. The MUHS has also invited the wrath of students for irregularities during the first CET conducted by it. A committee headed by the former Vice-Chancellor of the Mumbai University, Dr Snehalata Deshmukh, had recommended that the university should only remain as an institution for research and development and be stripped of other powers.