Hyderabad: Chronic shortage of faculty, staff and infrastructure has made it difficult for the only two Government Ayurveda teaching hospitals in Telangana, Dr BRKR Government Ayurveda Medical College, Erragadda, and Anantha Lakshmi Government Ayurveda Medical College, Warangal, to retain their UG and PG seats during every academic year from the regulatory body i.e. Central Council for Indian Medicine (CCIM).
This year too, the managements of both the Ayurvedic medical colleges struggled to get their UG and PG seats. After conducting the mandatory inspections, the teams from the CCIM issued only ‘conditional permission’ to both the Ayurvedic medical colleges for the academic year 2020-21. Every academic year, the colleges offer 63 UG seats each in BAMS degree while Dr BRKR Ayurveda Medical College in Hyderabad also offers 48 PG medical seats for specialisation in Ayurveda.
The CCIM in its recent order made it clear that the authorities of both the Ayurveda medical colleges must meet infrastructure, teaching and training requirements by December 31 and directed AYUSH officials in Telangana to provide a compliance report, after taking the necessary remedial measures.
Since 2010, the AYUSH wing of Telangana has not been able to take up recruitment of vital faculty in the Ayurvedic medical colleges. Given the inordinate delay in recruitment of vital staff, there is a question mark over the quality of Ayurveda medial education being imparted to UG and PG students.
“The last recruitment for both the medical colleges happened in 2010. Only 40 per cent of the faculty is present while there are 60 per cent vacancies of Professors, Associate and Assistant Professors. Over the years, the CCIM has been providing conditional permission to both the colleges after receiving letters from head of the institution that vacancies will be filled immediately,” says Dr Mallu Prasad, former member of CCIM and senior Ayurveda practitioner in Hyderabad.
Senior AYUSH officials said the recruitment should happen in the coming days. “To complete the process of filling the vacancies, the State government recently directed the AYUSH Department to forward the list of vacancies and we had done the same. We are hoping that we can start the process before December 31,” says Additional Director (Ayurveda) AYUSH, Dr Anasuya.
TS to fill up vacancies soon in AYUSH wing
As part of its efforts to make Indian medicine accessible to general public, Health Minister Eatala Rajender directed Health Department to provide AYUSH services across all the Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in the State. Apart from that, he also instructed the officials concerned to complete the recruitment of vacant posts.
“All vacant posts in the AYUSH wing will be filled-up in the coming months. A special task force has been set up for a thorough study and come up with a blueprint to develop AYUSH,” Rajender said in a recent review meeting. The filling-up of vacancies are expected to happen in coming days, officials said.
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