In a delayed move, the Health Ministry has directed the State Governments to shut down 14 homoeopathy colleges in their respective areas for providing substandard education.
The move came after the Ministry found that the institutes, despite being given an opportunity to upgrade their infrastructure, did not do so thus putting the future of hundreds of students in jeopardy.
“Though they were given sufficient time to improve their infrastructure including faculty they failed to comply. Now, we have asked the State Governments to take action against their respective defaulter colleges within next three months or their licence will stand cancelled automatically,” said a senior Health Ministry official.
These institutes are situated across states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan among others.
Interestingly, just six months ago, the Ministry had brushed aside the recommendations of the Central Council for Homeopathy (CCH) which had called for closure of these institutes for acute paucity of teaching staff and other infrastructure as prescribed in the rules.
“But MoS for Health S Gandhiselvan preferred to give them another chance for the academic year 2011-12,” sources pointed out. However, the amnesty failed to deliver results as fresh inspections by the Ministry found that these colleges remained short of meeting minimum educational standards.
The Ministry has now also asked the CCH to conduct a survey, by even engaging government teachers as inspectors, of all the homeopathy medical colleges across the country every year.
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