Gujarat’s first deemed varsity under a cloud

At the canteen,students tried to comfort each other and called up their parents. They were worried,both about their academic future as well as the educational loans they had taken to pay the hefty fees. “The annual fees are at least Rs 1 lakh. We have taken loans,” said a dental student.

An MBBS student was busy calling up his father,who is a dean at Saurashtra University in Rajkot.

There are some who have paid fees as steep as Rs 35 lakh to get admission under the NRI quota.

Sumandeep University Chancellor Mansukh Shah denied all “speculations” of imminent de-recognition. “All the allegations made against the university are wrong. We have not received any official communiqué from the Union HRD Ministry yet.

The petition was filed by one Viplav Sharma four years ago,when the SVU was not a deemed university. The HRD ministry had approached us thrice—once when a public complaint was made against us,and again when an eight-member UGC statutory council team had visited the university. But they couldn’t prove anything,” Shah said.

Few months ago,SVU made a presentation to the HRD ministry. Nothing was communicated to us during that time,Shah added.

Meanwhile,the local students of Pipariya village have been opposing the university’s plans to start more courses. They pointed out how SVU took over a neighbouring land from where the N C Jhaveri Arts and Commerce College was run by the Sanskar Education Trust (SET) for the last 10 years.

Even as the SVU trust says that the land was taken over by it in 2005,N C Jhaveri students said that SET cannot sell the land given to it by the villagers for education.

The state Higher Education Department formed a fact-finding committee,but nothing came out. The Indian Express has documents that show that SVU took over the land before informing the charity commissioner. The date of transaction was May 27,2005,while the charity commissioner was informed only on June 6,2005.

Earlier,the colleges of SVU were run by the K M Shah Charitable Trust,which was renamed while seeking the deemed university status. In 2007,Rajesh Patel,a trustee (now in the UK),had challenged the conversion of K M Shah Charitable Trust to Sumandeep Vidyapeeth Charitable Trust. According to the documents available with this paper,Patel had alleged that the existence of Sumandeep Vidyapeeth is illegal and against the Bombay Public Trust Act.

Things were further compounded after HRD ministry Joint Secretary Sunil Kumar formed a three-member committee to investigate the parents’ complaints against the university,which were later taken up by the Central Vigilance Commission

Two years before the SVU attained the deemed university status,two cheating cases were filed against the institute by the parents of the students.

Inspector J R Ramgadhiya of the Detection of Crime Branch (DCB) said,“We filed the charge sheet in a Vadodara court a month ago.”

One Arvindsingh Nagpal from Tandari,Punjab had filed a complaint on December 22,2006,while Lalitkumar Singh from Jamui,Bihar had filed another in the Waghodia police station,which was later taken over by the DCB. These parents had alleged that they were cheated by Mansukh Shah. The cases were filed under sections 406 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).

Mansukh’s son,Dixit,handles the management of SVU along with the 900-bed Dhiraj General Hospital on the university campus.

He too called the allegations baseless. “It happens with educational institutes. We are imparting good education and we are furthering our objectives by setting up an institute for hospital management,” he said.

Jignesh Patel (name changed),a student of K M Shah Dental College,said,“Most of the teaching staff in this college are retired professors of Baroda Medical College (BMC).

SVU,the genesis
Its origin lies in a family trust started by dentist Mansukhlal Shah,who still runs a single-room clinic in Vadodara city. Prior to that,he owned a factory that specialised in manufacturing the special dentist’s chair. From that,he came into education. The K M Shah Charitable Trust was set up,which later started the Dental College and Hospital in 1999. Then in 2001,S K J Pandya College of Physiotherapy was established,followed by the Dhiraj General Hospital in 2002 and the Smt. Bhikhiben Kanjibhai Shah Medical Institute & Research Centre (Medical College) in 2003.

The Institute started postgraduate courses in dentistry and dental surgery (MDS) along with the Sumandeep Nursing College in 2006-07. Before attaining the deemed university status,the colleges were affiliated to the Ahmedabad-based Gujarat University.

SVU facts
Sumandeep Vidyapeeth (SVU) is the only private medical university in Gujarat,and one of the two deemed universities in Gujarat,the other being Gujarat Vidyapeeth. Applications of another 13 universities for deemed university status in Gujarat are pending.

SVU attained deemed university status in the de novo category u/s of the UGC Act 1956 vide notification No-F.9-46/2004-U.3,on January 17,2007.

The number of students enrolled in 2008 is 538,while it was 242 in 2007. This includes those who have enrolled for dental,physiotherapy,medical,nursing,pharmacy and management courses.

According to the SVU annual report of 2008,the total teaching strength in the various departments is as follows: dental-95,physiotherapy-16,medical-403,nursing-24,pharmacy-10 and management-7

Hostel fees: Rs 20,000 on sharing basis and Rs 5,000 (refundable deposit) Tuition fees: Dental: Rs 3,25,000 per annum,Rs 6,500 per annum for other activities,and Rs 25,000 as college deposit; MBBS: Rs 3,45,000 per annum,Rs 6,500 per annum for other activities,and Rs 25,000 as college deposit.