Agartala, Sep 05, 2012 : In a brazen violation of norms set by Medical Council of India (MCI) the society-run Tripura Medical College (TMC) authority is arbitrarily forcing all students including those living within 1/2 kms of the college to stay in the bleak house called hostel, presumably to retain the economic viability of the hostel management. According to universally known norms of MCI, 25% of students in each year can be made 'Day Scholars'-that is , they can be allowed to attend classes from homes or rented houses outside the hostel or college campus. In previous years the TMC authority also allowed this in compliance with MCI norms.
This year at the time of admission a number of students and guardians-well below the permissible ceiling of 25% -had applied for 'Day Scholar' status, citing very genuine and valid grounds . But in an arbitrary decision the TMC authority chose to ride roughshod over the genuine pleas made by the few students and guardians and issued a 'fatwa' that all students must stay in the hostel. That is in sharp contrast with current situation in AGMC where the authority this year has not imposed any decision mandating compulsory stay in the hostel for Agartala-based students.
In a strange case two first year students who themselves have genuine health problems entailing restricted dieting and critically sick mothers at home had occupied the allotted rooms in the hostel but then stayed at home with permission from the Warden. Without checking with facts ,TMC's Quixotic acting principal T.N.Sharma turned the hapless first year students out of the class on Wednesday and threatened to impose a fine of Rs 500 each on them per day unless they commenced staying in the hostel, refusing to listen to pleas of the students that they had obtained permission from the Warden for staying outside. When the guardians of the students confronted Sharma with the issue and cited MCI norms and permission granted by the Warden the unbalanced Principal looked away while squirming on his chair.
'What can I do , this is the order of higher authority ; let the students stay for 2/3 days and then reapply for exemption' said Sharma . The guardians and students did not ask how the 'higher authority' could poke their administrative nose into an essentially academic matter over the head of the principal. Sources in the TMC disclosed that T.N.Sharma 'is here basically to superintend the studies of his daughter, a second year student in the TMC, and least bothered about genuine problems and interests of the students'.
Apart from this, the condition of the noisy hostels in TMC where students from first year up to Internees stay together is horrible. The quality of food and water is 'horrible', toilets and bathrooms are 'most unhygienic' and treatment meted out to freshers by the 'old babes' among internees is appalling. The TMC authority has so far suspended two internees , Aveek Debbarma and Narendra Kumar and a second year student Sayan Mazumder for ragging but minor troubles for freshers continues . Besides, most of the rooms in the hostels have one problem or the other like fans that do not move or lights that refuse to burn but the so-called ‘house keeping’ department of the TMC take their own sweet time to have these repaired , consigning the inmates to untold suffering in sweltering heat.
Among the victims of ragging was fresher Shaukhin Chakraborty, nephew of health minister Tapan Chakraborty, who was confined in his room for eight hours and physically maltreated . Another fresher Aveek Saha from Calcutta was forced to drink liquor by an internee Atul Tiwary while two other students Dhrupad Das and S.Pandey were also subjected to maltreatment. 'The punishments have reduced the level of ragging but have done nothing to improve the condition of hostels ; freshers who try to study more are invariably disturbed by being asked to purchase and fetch cigarettes ; almost all the internees and a number of senior students consume liquor on a regular basis and often organise raucous cocktail parties , totally marring the atmosphere for studies of students' said a guardian on condition of anonymity. Sources in the TMC confirmed this and said 'there are a number of major scams involving huge amounts of money' , records of which on files would be gradually disclosed.