The Ayurvedic Medicine Manufacturers Organisation of India (AMMOI) recently sent a representation to the Department of Ayush  expressing their discontent over its decision to conduct exams for Certificate of Rashtriya Ayurveda Vidyapeeth Course (CRAV) under the Guru Shishya Parampara in Delhi on March 11 at a short notice. In its representation, the association highlighted the difficulties that the students from across the country will have to face due to this hasty decision that came in the last minute.

The representation was sent by AMMOI on March 1, as response to the circular issued by Ayush Department on February 28 which informed prospective students about the date and venue of the entrance exam. Unlike last year, wherein the walk in interview was conducted in the respective states, this year the Department changed its rules again, making it mandatory to give entrance exam for all the students interested in applying for Guru Shishya Parampara to travel all the way to Delhi.

Dr Ramanathan Devaraj Iyer, president of AMMOI, pointed “We are not opposed to going to Delhi for the examination if it needs be, but what is surprising is that the circular was issued by the department in the last minute making it almost impossible for students to make it to Delhi for the exams. All we ask is to postpone the date so that they can arrange for tickets and finances, to travel this long.”

He further added that since the examination is being conducted only in Delhi it was the moral responsibility of the Department to inform the students about the same before hand so that they could have booked their tickets in advance. “Now the whole process is going to be extremely tedious and costly for the students residing far way. This act by the Department is going to seriously impact the selection procedure as most of the applicants will not be able to make it either due to non availability if tickets to Delhi or because of cost expenditure related with the same.”

He said that the whole industry, especially the students fraternity is clearly annoyed with this lacklustre attitude of the Government in not providing equal opportunity for all the candidates. Dr Iyer pointed out that this shows that they have overlooked the needs of the students residing in other parts of the country for this informative one year programme.

However, officials from the department clarified that they have re-adopted the entrance exam pattern, because they where not able to get the desired result in the previous year wherein interview was conducted state wise. He said, “This year we have enacted common entrance exam to ensure that there is uniformity in the selection procedure while selecting the students. Since each states had their own procedure, we were not able to get the desired result last year, wherein students where selected based on their final results than their over all performance creating inequality in the selection procedure.”

Dr Iyer insisted that there has been a great discord in the whole issue which is going to affect the over all participation in the exams. He suggested that, the only solution to ensure maximum participation is to conduct simultaneous entrance exam in major cities for the time being and urged them to ensure that at least in future such information to be imparted in a professional manner.

However, when asked to clarify there delayed announced of the examination date which caused all the confusion, officials from the department said that it was a ministerial decision which had to be followed as per the rules.