Aher opposed to Deshmukh panel recommendations on MUHS

The meeting was called following reports that the committee, appointed by the Vilasrao Deshmukh government, had recommended that the MUHS be closed down or be entrusted only with research and not academic activities.

The meeting was attended by local politicians from the Congress, the NCP, the Shiv Sena, the BJP and some professionals, who made appeals to make efforts to see that the MUHS remained in Nashik without any curtailment in its powers.

A non-political committee comprising S N Andhrutkar, Bejon Desai, Dr Subhash Kashyap, Dr Sudhir Kulkarni, K K Ghuge, Vandan Potnis and Shashikant Tembe, was formed on the occasion to decide the further course of action. It was decided that the panel would lead a delegation from Nashik to chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh to request him to retain the university in Nashik and ignore the Deshmukh committee’s recommendations.

At the meeting, which lasted for over two hours, speakers invoked the regional pride of Nashik and alleged that injustice had always been committed on the people of the region. They pointed out that some long-pending demands of the Nashik citizens like creation of a railway terminal at Nashik Road, the introduction of a Mumbai-Nashik rail service, and the creation of a Mumbai-Nashik Expressway, had been either ignored or delayed by both the central and the state governments. They called for a mass agitation on this issue.

Dr Aher, talking to reporters on the issue, pointed out that stripping the MUHS of all its academic powers and entrusting it only with research and coordination activities, as per the Deshmuh panel’s recommendations, was against the basic principles of standardising medical education and practice, on which the MUHS was established.

He said that that the MUHS had been established as per centre’s directives to the state governments. The University was only the fourth in the country after those set up in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

He pointed out that it was too early for a “review” of the MUHS as it had been established only in June, 1998, and was still in its teething stage. He said that the very act of reviewing the university’s existence in less than two years of its formation, without giving it sufficient funds or staff, meant that the government was biased.

He said that despite suffering from severe problems like shortage of staff and lack of space, the university was doing its job well. However, the DF government had starved if off finances as it had certain misgivings about it.