SFI urges govt. to drop plans to privatise medical colleges
Student Federation of India's (SFI) State committee leaders have slammed the State government for its reported plans to privatise 17 newly-established government medical colleges.
In a statement on Friday (May 30), the federation's State president P. Rammohan and secretary K. Prasanna Kumar said reports appearing in a section of media suggested that these medical institutions were being leased out to private entities for up to 66 years at throwaway prices. They said the government decision would deprive students from marginalised communities of medical education and affordable healthcare services to the public would become a thing of the past.
They pointed out that the Minister for Human Resource Development (HRD) and IT Nara Lokesh, during his 'Yuvagalam' padayatra, had promised to repeal G.O.s 107 and 108 introduced by the previous government to sell medical seats, and had assured that all seats would be filled under government quota. They demanded that the Minister keep his promise and persuade the government to drop its privatisation proposal. They warned of State-wide protests should the government overlook their demand.
They also found fault with the practice of engaging private individuals and agencies to conduct exams in the SC, ST and BC residential schools across the State.
They said the residential set-ups lacked basic amenities subjecting the inmates to serious hardship. Many of these residential hostels did not have wardens, cooks, helpers, watchmen and even basic health care support.
Calling for immediate reforms, they said it was important to focus on revamping the teaching practices in residential schools, recruitment of adequate non-teaching staff, construction of permanent buildings for all residential schools and a ban on the practice of outsourcing the process of conducting exams to private agencies.
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