For establishing high-quality institutions to offer different medical courses, the Odisha government has streamlined procedures and formulated a set of guidelines. These courses include Nursing, Pharmacy, Allied Medical Science and Physiotherapy.
Further, according to the new guidelines, the involvement of district administration officials in the inspection of such institutions has been done away with. Before allowing any institute, a team of officials, who are experts in science subjects related to the course applied, will participate in the inspection. The team of officials for the inspection of institutions will be suggested by the chairman of the councils concerned.
Also, a set of minimum standards of requirements in accordance with the recommendations of the councils has also been prescribed. Private entrepreneurs will be encouraged for opening quality and sustainable educational institutions and generating skilled healthcare personnel in the state. The state government will take steps to set up such institutions as per the demand in unserved areas as and when required, as stated in a report by The New Indian Express.
Meanwhile, guidelines were formulated by the Health and Family Welfare department for issuing NOC (No Objection Certificate) for different courses of nursing, DPharm, BPharm, MPharm, DMLT, DMRT, Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy and different Allied Medical Science to have a rational fee structure. If institutions are unable to provide quality education and do not fulfil the minimum standard of requirements, NOC will be revoked.
This revision of guidelines and the new rule will facilitate the establishment of high-quality professional institutions in the state and lead to the availability of qualified and skilled health personnel in different streams, said the health officials. Sharing her views, health secretary Shalini Pandit said as per the new rules, the requirement of submission of geographic information system (GIS) and gap analysis data by applicants for determining the number of institutions in a district has been discontinued.
Further, the involvement of district officials — collector, ADM-Additional District Magistrate, BDO-Block Development Officer, deputy collector and tehsildar in the process would be discontinued followed by the subject experts taking part in the assessment for suitability of the institutions through inspection, she added.
The new rules will be effective from the 2023-24 academic session, she added. Also, the decision to formulate new guidelines was taken following requests from different quarters. To examine the issues and make recommendations, a high-level committee under the chairmanship of the principal secretary of the Skill Development, Technical Education (SD&TE) department was constituted, as stated in a report by The New Indian Express.
