BHOPAL (Madhya Pradesh): The opposition Congress may be aggressively attacking the previous BJP governments and the then medical education ministers over nursing college scam, but many institutes registered and given recognition by the Madhya Pradesh Nursing Council during the 15-month Congress rule in the state are also under the scanner.
The NSUI is pointing fingers at the former medical education minister Vishvas Sarang for getting colleges recognised even when they were unable to fulfil the necessary conditions. However, the colleges which were given recognition during the term of Vijay Laxmi Sadho, who was medical education minister in the Congress government, are also under the scanner of the investigating agencies.
The nursing college scam has taken several twists and turns. First, in response to a petition that alleged that nursing colleges were running violating norms, the High Court had ordered a CBI inquiry to identify the 'suitable, unsuitable, and deficient colleges'. While investigating the suitability of the colleges registered and re-registered in the year 2020-2021, the CBI found that its officials were accepting bribes from the institutes for providing the 'suitable' report after the inspection.
Colleges during Sadho's ministership
In the financial year 2018-19, as many as 385 nursing colleges were registered and re-registered. In 2019-20, 64 new colleges were registered and with this the number of total registered colleges reached 449. Vijay Laxmi Sadho was the minister for medical education during these two financial years. In the financial year 2020-21, in all 215 new colleges were registered when Vishvas Sarang was holding the portfolio of medical education. With this, the total number of registered colleges reached 667.
CBI probe
The CBI was investigating irregularities in 667 colleges which got registered and re-registered in 2020-2021. On February 22, 2024 the CBI submitted a list 308 colleges to the†High Court which were divided into three categories, suitable, deficient and unsuitable.
According to the list, out of 169 colleges 132 are suitable and 37 'suitable with minor deficiency'. In the second category 'deficiency' 73 colleges are categorised and 66 colleges have been categorised as unsuitable.
When the registration, re-registration and recognition of unsuitable colleges were done by the nursing council, Dr Anguri Singh was holding the charge of council registrar. She was the officiating registrar from January 2013 to April 2018.
Dr Jassi Philip held the charge from April 2018 to August 2019, Jayanti Chorasia from August 2019 to September 2020, Chandra Kala Divgivya from September 2020 to September 2021 and Sunita Siju from September 2021 to August 2022. Recently the state government had terminated the services of two former registrars Chandra Kala and Sunit Siju for their alleged involvement in the scam.
