After Medical Council of India (MCI) blocking 800 medical seats due to inadequate faculty and lack of required infrastructure facilities in the government medical colleges in Andhra Pradesh, now the Central Council for Indian Medicine (CCIM) has blocked admission to 36 postgraduate seats in Unani medicine in the state, citing state government’s failure to recruit adequate teaching staff, since past two years.

Nizamia Tibbi College is the only Government medical college offering Unani medicine course in the state. During the past two years the college is lacking sufficient teaching staff; because of this the state will lose as many as 36 postgraduate seats in Unani medicine this year too.

Earlier, during the last academic year, the Central government had cited the same reason of lack of faculty and had blocked admission into PG Unani medical seats. Despite losing valuable seats since the past two years, the state government seems to have not taken any positive steps to recruit faculty in the college, even as the new academic years is about to begin from June this year.

The Nizamia Tibbi College is regarded as one of the premier government institutions in the state that teaches Unani medicine and it has also gained name as a top Unani college in South India. “According to the CCIM Act stipulation, the Unani college doesn’t have the required facilities to run the PG courses,” said, Hakeem Musaddiq Khundmiri, secretary general, Indian Medicine Practitioners.

Earlier, the college was sanctioned five post-graduate courses like pharmacology fundamentals, gynaecology, general medicine and hygiene in 2008, but since then the government hasn’t recruited required teaching staff. “While other systems of medicine were running the courses with the necessary quota of staff, the Unani medicine branch is being neglected. When the college needs around 70 teaching staff, only about 50 teaching staff are available for the last five years,” says Hakeem Musaddiq.

Last academic year, when the CCIM authorities inspected the college, they found out that the college lacked facilities like adequate staff. So they stopped permission for running the PG courses. It’s been a year since then and the government hasn’t done anything to improve the facilities.

While the situation is like this, the state Medical and Health Minister Kondru Murali is optimistic. According to a statement released by the state health ministry, the government is taking all the necessary steps to get permissions for not only the 800 MBBS, but also the PG seats in Unani college in the state.