Hyderabad: No classes have been held for the past 45 days for 300 students of Maheshwara Medical College as the faculty refuses to teach unless they are paid long pending salaries.
The faculty has not been paid for six months and consequently the two batches of 2016-17 and 2017-18 have no lecturers.
There are 60 medical professors, all of whom are staying away. Charan Raj, a second year student says, “We had eight meetings with the director Mr Krishna Rao and every time he assured us that the lectures will commence but it has been a false promise. He has shown us fake documents of salary credited. The medical superintendent is not coming to the college or the hospital. Only emergency services are being attended to at the hospital. We are in a dilemma as we are in the middle of the college semester.”
Students and parents protested on Saturday and demanded that the classes be started.
Maheshwara Medical College is based in Medak and its troubles started in June 2018 when an inspection by the Medical Council of India found that there is not sufficient faculty to teach medicine. The college’s permission to operate for 2018-19 was cancelled by the MCI as the college does not have sufficient faculty and infrastructure for another 150 students who would join.
Since then, students say, there has been a major decline. Existing faculty has left and most departments are functioning with only one professor.
The Telangana Junior Doctors Association (TJDA) has taken up the case and Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences has stated that a committee will visit the college and inquire into the problems. TJUDA has also approached health minister Etala Rajender and requested him to intervene in the matter so that students do not suffer.
The one-member committee of director of medical education Dr K. Ramesh Reddy will be visiting the college on Monday morning.
