Health ministry asks NMC to defer minimum standards for medical colleges — ‘unrealistic’

Health ministry asks NMC to defer minimum standards for medical colleges — ‘unrealistic’

National Medical Commission nearly doubled bed, faculty, and patient requirements for new and existing medical colleges in August 2023 notification.

SUMI SUKANYA DUTTA

05 March, 2024 08:00 am IST

New Delhi: The Union health ministry and the National Medical Commission (NMC) are not on the same page about the 2023 Minimum Standard Regulations Under-Graduate (MSR-UG), which lays down the guidelines for setting up new medical colleges and initiating new courses, besides regulating student intake capacity.

Medical education regulator NMC, thePrint has learnt, updated the regulations in a notification in August 2023. The notification nearly doubled the number of hospital beds, faculty members, patients, etc., required to set up new medical colleges, increase seats in existing colleges, or start new courses from the 2024-25 academic year.

Sources in government said the Union health ministry feels the new regulations have “unrealistic” infrastructure and faculty requirements, which medical colleges are finding difficult to fulfill.

“We have asked the NMC to defer the MSR-UG guidelines for two years and suggested a review of the regulations before their implementation,” a top official in the health ministry told ThePrint.

The Print reached health secretary Apurva Chandra via emails and phone calls but received no response by the time of publication. This report will be updated if and when a response is received.

The 2023 MSR-UG also included a controversial clause, which said the NMC would permit new MBBS colleges and more undergraduate seats in existing colleges based on the state population — 100 MBBS seats for every 10 lakh population. The NMC, however, deferred the plan after pushback from southern states, which have already breached this ratio.

Now, health ministry sources have cited a letter by the All India Medical Education Federation (AIMEF), a voluntary association of government and non-government medical institutes, saying that 58 medical colleges applied for an increase in MBBS seats this year, but 56 faced rejection under the 2023 MSR-UG. ThePrint has seen a copy of the letter.

The letter, undersigned by Dr Virendra Kumar, managing director, AIMEF, has been sent to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), apart from the health ministry and the NMC. It also said that of the 253 applicants seeking renewal of UG courses, 212 faced rejection under the new regulations.

The Print could not independently verify the authenticity of the letter as there was no footprint of the association on the internet.

Dr. Aruna Wanikar, chairperson of the NMC UG board, said the regulations were announced after consultations with medical institutes and government representatives, intending to raise the standards of existing and new colleges.

“If we have to, we will defer the new regulations, or else, we will review them. But, the reality is that many institutes, even today, are not following the Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance system (AEBAS) and close-circuit TV monitoring that also has to link with the NMC national command centre despite these regulations existing from before the 2023 MSR-UG. We are just trying to enforce stricter norms for raising the standard of medical training,” she said.

Overall, 708 institutes in the country offer an MBBS degree to students. The number of UG medicine seats in India was 1,08,848 in 2023.

TN forms panel to redeem universities from audit mess

TN forms panel to redeem universities from audit mess

The committee will investigate the irregularities and may waive the refunds previously sought, in eligible instances.

Express News Service

Updated on:

29 Feb 2024, 8:12 am

CHENNAI: To deal with the huge backlog of audit objections regarding funds in the 13 state universities, the government has formed a high-level committee headed by the principal secretary of the higher education department, to expeditiously clear the pending objections. Welcoming the move, officials from the universities said the will help effectively clear the objections and pave the way for receiving timely grants.

“Citing the audit objections, the state government has not been releasing funds to the universities due to which, the universities are struggling to manage expenses. If the audit objections are cleared, it will be a great relief for us,” said a senior official at a state university. A government order in this regard was issued on Tuesday.

The decision was taken after the universities complained to the higher education department that they were unable to resolve the objections at the regional level and that a state-level committee might be helpful in resolving the issues.

In the eight-member committee, the special director of local fund audit will act as the member secretary while the deputy director will be the special invitee. The assistant director, deputy secretary of the higher education department, registrar and finance officers of the universities concerned and representative of the principal secretary of the state finance department will be other members of the committee.

The committee will investigate the irregularities and may waive the refunds previously sought, in eligible instances. Similarly, it has to prescribe a methodology for settling the outstanding audit paras, especially pensioners, to explore the possibility of devising common policies, procedures and internal control mechanisms governing the key aspects of the functioning of universities.

The committee will monitor timely audit, submission of the annual accounts and audit reports and suggest to the vice chancellor and syndicate body to take appropriate action in case of serious irregularities. It will also recommend ways to recover losses from the staff concerned in case of irregularities. The panel will meet at least once every quarter.

Notably, in the 13 state universities, thousands of audit objections have been pending for several years due to which they are unable to get grants from the state government. Most of the local fund audit objections are related to salary discrepancy, promotion, and appointment. In some cases, the pensioners are not receiving retirement benefits due to the pending audit objections.

Secondary grade teachers’ stir enters 10th day, MIN urges them to resume work

Chennai : A total of 9,354 secondary grade teachers across the state have been participating in the strike called by the Secondary Grade Seniority Teachers’ Association demanding equal pay, for the past 10 days. “The basic pay for teachers who were appointed before June 1, 2009, was Rs 8,370. It was Rs 5,200 for those who were appointed on or after that date. The pay gap is widening with every pay commission. The salary difference has now reached more than Rs 20,000. More than 20,000 teachers are adversely affected due to this,” an association member said. School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi on Tuesday asked the teachers to return to work considering that students’ examinations are approaching. Minister said a three-member committee has been formed to look into the issues and provide suggestions. After that, issue will be taken to CM, he added.

Madras University staff strike work after IT Dept action blocks salary payments

Madras University staff strike work after IT Dept action blocks salary payments

Madras University has been unable to pay salaries to its staff after Government of India's Income Tax department froze over 50 bank accounts of the university.

Staff strike work after IT Dept freezes MU bank accountsMartin Louis - EPS
Binita Jaiswal

Updated on:
01 Mar 2024, 3:14 pm

Teaching and non-teaching staff of the University of Madras staged a protest at the main gate of the varsity's Chepauk campus on Friday, condemning the state government for ignoring the plight of the university.

Over 800 employees of the university, from faculty members to housekeeping staff, participated in the protest.

Madras University has been unable to pay salaries to its staff after Government of India's Income Tax department froze over 50 bank accounts of the university.

The Income Tax department froze the account after demanding Rs 424 crore as dues dating as far back as 2017.

The notices were issued after the Income Tax Department reclassified Madras University as a private university, pointing out that it does not get at least 51% of its funding from the government.

The staff strike disrupted classes for the students. "We sat in the classrooms for three hours, waiting for our teachers, but none turned up," said S Sabari, a postgraduate student.

"We have locked the main gate of the university and are not allowing anybody to enter the campus. None of the staff is on duty today. We will continue this indefinite strike until the state government allocates funds to tide over the financial crisis caused due to the Income Tax department’s action," said a member of the joint action committee of teaching and non-teaching staff associations.

Meanwhile, in a circular issued on Thursday, the university registrar asked all the teaching and administrative staff to not indulge in any type of protest inside the campus.

The university administration had expressed hope that the bank accounts of the university frozen by the IT department would be unlocked by Friday noon, following which they would be able to pay salaries. However, the teachers say the university does not have money for salaries.

"The IT department has already deducted Rs 12.5 crore from the university account. Even if the accounts are defrozen, the university will have to break its corpus fund to pay salaries and we are against using the corpus. The government should immediately step in and release grants for salaries," said a faculty member of the university.

The teachers alleged that citing audit objections, the government has not been providing grants properly to the university since 2017. "While the audit objections are related to only 5% to 10% of the funds, the state government has reduced funding by almost 75%," said a professor.

Microsoft introduces Copilot AI chatbot for finance workers in Excel and Outlook

Microsoft introduces Copilot AI chatbot for finance workers in Excel and Outlook

PUBLISHED THU, FEB 29 202411:00 AM ESTUPDATED THU, FEB 29 20241:42 PM EST

Jordan Novet@JORDANNOVET

KEY POINTS

Microsoft is launching a Copilot for Finance, which it said will be able to perform a handful of common role-specific actions in Excel and Outlook.
After testing the new tool, Microsoft’s own finance department has seen time savings, the company said.

Charles Lamanna, corporate vice president for business applications and platforms at Microsoft, speaks at a press event in San Francisco on Feb. 28, 2024.

Jordan Novet | CNBC

Microsoft on Thursday announced that it will release a Copilot chatbot that can perform key tasks for people working in finance. The software company will first offer the tool in public preview. Pricing details will follow.

Many business software providers, including HubSpot and Salesforce, have been working to supercharge existing products with generative artificial intelligence, in the hope of making clients more efficient. The craze began after startup OpenAI in 2022 launched the ChatGPT chatbot, which can spit out natural-sounding text or other content with a few words of human input.

The typical company comprises a variety of groups in which employees perform specialized work. “We want every one of the departments to be enabled and enriched with a Copilot,” Charles Lamanna, a Microsoft corporate vice president, said in an interview with CNBC in San Francisco on Wednesday.

Microsoft already has a Copilot for general-purpose industrial use in Office applications, and it has released Copilots designed for sales and customer-service workers.

The Copilot for finance will initially run a variance analysis, reconcile data in Excel and speed up the collections process in Outlook. The software can draw on information stored in SAP and in Microsoft Dynamics 365. Additional features will come to the finance Copilot later this year, Lamanna said.

The Japanese advertising agency Dentsu will use the Copilot for finance tasks, Lamanna said.

Microsoft said its finance department provided input into the development of the new Copilot and that it’s seen some early benefits from using it.

Comparing data taken from different systems is “something every finance team on the planet does a lot of,” said Cory Hrncirik, modern finance lead in Microsoft’s office of the chief financial officer. A couple of thousand people on a financial planning and analysis team each spend one or two hours doing reconciliation each week, and with the new Copilot, that takes more like 10 or 20 minutes per week, he said.

The idea is to help these employees spend fewer hours on tedious tasks and provide time for more engaging work that can contribute more to the company. But Microsoft’s finance employees aren’t required to use the new Copilot, Hrncirik said.

If many finance professionals in a given company take advantage of those automations, though, the company might be able to close its books more quickly.

“That is one of the big pitches for CFOs,” Lamanna said.

UAE parents relieved as India announces medical exam centres in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah

UAE parents relieved as India announces medical exam centres in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah

Testing agency to hold the NEET-UG entrance tests for 2024 in 14 international centres worldwide

by

Nasreen Abdulla

Published: Wed 21 Feb 2024, 10:07 AM

Last updated: Wed 21 Feb 2024, 11:13 PM

Indian parents in the UAE were relieved as the National Testing Agency (NTA) of India announced the inclusion of several foreign testing centres for its medical exam, including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah.

In a tweet on Tuesday, the NTA revealed that the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test for Undergraduates (NEET-UG) 2024 would take place in 14 international centres.

In a notice dated February 20, the NTA wrote, “In continuation of the public notice dated February 9, 2024, it has been decided that the exam will be conducted in foreign cities.” Testing centres in other cities worldwide will include Lagos, Singapore and Bangkok.

Most parents reacted with relief and joy. “I have no words to express my happiness,” said Sherin Shafeeq, whose daughter has been preparing for the exam for over two years. “I have been praying fervently for a resolution of the issue since the first notice came out.”

Sherin said she was hopeful and had yet to fill out the form for a centre in India. “My daughter’s coaching centre had asked us to hold off filling in the application form until as late as possible to see if there was any chance of foreign centres to be announced,” she said. “I am truly grateful to everyone who took the initiative to get the international centres for the NEET exams.”

Last week, Khaleej Times reported that no foreign centres were listed in the initial document released by NTA. Speaking to KT, parents voiced their concern about removing centres, saying how it severely affected their plans.

Many parents feared that travelling to India for the test might impact their children's performance, and accompanying guardians would have to take time off work, manage other kids staying back in the UAE, and expensive air tickets might add to their monthly budget.

In 2021, India first opened international centres for the NEET-UG exams — a prerequisite for all students aspiring to study medicine in India and some international countries. The move came after thousands of students could not travel to India during the Covid-19 pandemic. It relieved parents who had been petitioning for centres outside India for years. However, no international centres were listed in the initial document this year, but the number of centres in India increased.

Now, almost two weeks after its first announcement, the NTA has announced the decision to conduct the entrance exam in several cities worldwide.

According to the NTA notice, any student who has already selected centres in India and paid the fee without the option for foreign centres will have the opportunity to correct their centre and country choice during a correction window. This window will open after the registration window closes.

Alka Malik, Founder and Managing Director of coaching centre Ascentria, said they were overjoyed with the move. “It’s so wonderful that they have considered the situation of NRI students,” she said. “Some parents who have already registered are concerned about missing the correction window, but we are making sure to keep track of it and inform parents when the window opens.”

The NTA as an independent, autonomous and self-sustained organisation that was set up by India’s Ministry of Education to conduct the NEET-UG and other such competitive exams last year.

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Periyar University V-C allows Registrar to retire, ignoring govt. directive to suspend him

Periyar University V-C allows Registrar to retire, ignoring govt. directive to suspend him

February 29, 2024 07:41 pm | Updated 07:41 pm IST - Salem

M. SABARI

Registrar (full additional charge) K. Thangavel speaking at his farewell function at Periyar University on Thursday. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

Despite a directive from the Higher Education Department to Periyar University Vice-Chancellor R. Jagannathan to suspend Registrar (full additional charge) K. Thangavel on corruption charges, Mr. Thangavel was allowed to retire on Thursday.

The Association of University Teachers (AUT) said that by allowing Mr. Thangavel to retire, the V-C had challenged an elected government.

An inquiry committee constituted by the government to probe various allegations against Mr. Thangavel had confirmed seven charges, including misappropriate of funds. Consequently, on February 7, Higher Education Department Secretary A. Karthik directed the Vice-Chancellor to suspend Mr. Thangavel. He pointed out that Mr. Thangavel was due to retire on February 29.

However, Mr. Jagannathan wrote to the department seeking material evidence against Mr. Thangavel. On February 27, the Secretary sent a letter to the V-C with the material evidence enclosed, and instructed him to suspend Mr. Thangavel.

On Thursday, a farewell function was organised in the Computer Science Department for Mr. Thangavel, who was also head of the department.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the members of the Periyar University Employees’ Union (PUEU) and the Periyar University Teachers’ Association (PUTA) staged protests against the Vice-Chancellor for not acting against the Registrar. The university administration issued a memo to 33 persons who participated in the protests.

Periyar University Registrar (in-charge) P. Viswanathamurthi issued a memo to PUTA president V. Vaithianathan for participating in the protest, and sought a written explanation in five days.

AUT president M.S. Balamurugan condemned Mr. Jagannathan for his “continuous, utter indifference and apathy” towards directives from the government. He said that the V-C had posed an unlawful challenge to the State.

According to him, it also exposed the V-C’s “double standards” in “victimising” unpreferred teachers such as K. Premkumar, the general secretary of PUTA, “whose illegal and purposely protracted” suspension was nearing completion.

“The AUT urges the State government to immediately remove the V-C, as his challenge to the State should not be tolerated anymore,” Mr. Balamurugan said.

Mr. Jagannathan and Registrar (in-charge) Viswanathamurthi were not available for comment.

Go digital: No need for exact tender in MTC, SETC buses in Chennai

Go digital: No need for exact tender in MTC, SETC buses in Chennai

Transport Secretary Phanindra Reddy said the UPI payment system will soon be extended to TNSTC buses.

Udhayanidhi Stalin distributing electronic ticketing machines to conductors in the presence of Transport Minister S S Sivasankar at a function in Guindy | express

B Anbuselvan

Updated on:29 Feb 2024, 7:42 am

CHENNAI: Commuters in Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) and the State Express Transport Corporation (SETC) buses can pay for their tickets through UPI, credit, or debit cards from now on. Launching the cashless payment system on Wednesday, Sports Minister Udhayanidhi Stalin distributed 26 electronic ticketing machines (ETM) to conductors in the presence of Transport Minister S S Sivasankar at a function held in Guindy.

During the same event, he also flagged off 50 BS VI non-AC buses for MTC that were purchased for Rs 20 crore and launched the home delivery of new driving licences, renewed licences, registration certificates and other vehicle and transport-related documents to applicants.

Alby John Varghese, Managing Director, MTC, told TNIE that the digital payment system will be rolled out on 129 buses operating from the Central bus depot from Thursday onwards. “Within the next two to three weeks, all MTC buses will be equipped with the cashless payment system,” he said.

Varghese further said that the initial batch of 50 new buses for MTC arrived on Wednesday, and 50 more are expected to arrive soon. “These 100 buses will be distributed among eight to nine depots, improving connectivity to the new Kilambakkam terminus and other areas. Additionally, the number of services via Chennai bypass (CMBT - KCBT) will be increased,” he added. MTC operates buses on 696 routes with a fleet capacity of 3,150 vehicles and carries around 31 lakh to 32 lakh commuters a day.

Official sources from SETC said, “Electronic ticketing machines have been introduced on buses running to Rameswaram, Gudalur, and Kanniyakumari from Chennai. Following a trial period, this system will be expanded to all routes in the coming days. Travellers will be able to make payments using credit and debit cards, as well as UPI applications.” The SETC carries about 75,000 commuters a day with a fleet strength of over 800 buses.

The implementation of electronic payment systems in public transport corporations in the state has long been overdue. Difficulties in tendering exact change for ticket fares had many times led to verbal altercations between commuters and conductors. In response to numerous complaints, on November 1 last year, the MTC issued a circular specifically instructing conductors not to demand exact change from commuters during the journey.

Explaining the ordeal, an MTC bus conductor said, “The problem of demanding exact fare was a result of lower denomination currencies (Rs 10, Rs 20, and Rs 50) and coins becoming scarce among commuters. Small vendors and street traders have also largely shifted to UPI as ATMs mostly dispense only Rs 200 and Rs 500 notes. This cashless payment transition will benefit both bus crew and travellers.”

Transport Secretary Phanindra Reddy said the UPI payment system will soon be extended to TNSTC buses.