According to the information provided to Republica by the Office of the Company Registrar, the medical college has authorized capital of Rs 400 million and paid-up capital of Rs 280 million. However, the report submitted to the NMC states that the college's authorized capital is around Rs 1 billion and paid-up capital is Rs 400 million.
KATHMANDU, Aug 30: It has been revealed that Kathmandu National Medical College (KNMC) kept the Nepal Medical Council (NMC) in the dark by submitting a misleading report about its paid-up and authorized capital.
The controversial medical college is owned by CPN-UML workers. The management committee of the hospital consists of Mohammad Basruddin Ansari as manager, his elder brother Mohammad Jainuddin Ansari as chairman and sister-in-law Mostikina Khatun as a shareholder. The composition of the committee is in violation of the basic policy for the operation of private sector schools and colleges, which requires that such a committee has five members.
The trio, who hail from Parsauni Birta-4 of Parsa district, constructed a residential apartment complex at Ghattekulo of Kathmandu but they tried to open a medical college on the property after failing to sell the apartments. Basruddin is also the managing director of Birgunj-based National Medical College.
Corruption complaints registered against TU, NMC officials
According to the information provided to Republica by the Office of the Company Registrar, the medical college has authorized capital of Rs 400 million and paid-up capital of Rs 280 million. However, the report submitted to the NMC states that the college's authorized capital is around Rs 1 billion and paid-up capital is Rs 400 million.
"The documents submitted to us shows that the paid-up capital is Rs 400 million," said Dr Dilip Sharma, registrar at the NMC. "The college has attempted to mislead us," he said.
According to NMC, the apex medical body, a medical college must have at least a 300-bed hospital and 100 ropanies of land for getting affiliation from a university.
Officials at the Ministry of Education (MoE) said that there isn't any specific law or act about granting affiliation to medical colleges. "Until a decade ago, a high-level technical education committee headed by the education minister would decide the criteria for opening colleges including medical colleges," said MoE officials.
The MoE itself is indirectly responsible for granting permission to KNMC to open hospital five years ago. And in early 2015, the then education minister Chitra Lekha Yadav had directed Tribhuvan University to give affiliation to the KNMC.
"Both the orders were illegitimate as the MoE could not issue such directives as per the rules. It can only make recommendations and it is up to the university to decide whether to grant affiliation or not," said Dr Hari Prasad Lamsal, spokesperson at the MoE.
However, Tribhuvan University secretly decided to issue affiliation to the KNMC by violating the existing rules when Dr Govinda KC was still on his 11th hunger strike, which he postponed on the 23rd day on August 15. One of the demands of Dr KC included disallowing new medical colleges in the Kathmandu Valley for 10 years. The Kathmandu-based medical college has neither operated hospital beds nor does it have teaching faculties and doctors.
Five years ago, a panel of NMC led by Dr Anil Jha which also had Dr Shashi Sharma and Dr Saroj Shrestha as members had recommended that KNMC has fulfilled the eligibility requirements for getting affiliation.
However, the college owns only about three ropanies of land at Ghattekulo while it should have a plot of at least 100 ropanies of land within 10 kilometers from the main building. KNMC showed 126 ropanies of land located at Nallu and Chalnakhel of Lalitpur for getting affiliation. The places are 24 and 13 kilometers away from the college building.
As per the rules, once affiliation is granted, TU should write to the NMC and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to inspect the college and only after the inspection that permission can be granted for running a medical college. "We will go for inspection after getting a letter from the TU. We are not bound to give the college the permit to operate the medical college if it does not meet the set criteria," said registrar Dr Sharma. "We are waiting for a response from the MoE and the prime minister, who can cancel the controversial affiliation."
Dr JP Agrawal, the dean at IOM, said that they have not received any information from the TU regarding affiliation.
The Ministry of Health (MoH) had formed an eight-member probe panel on August 22 to look into the issues regarding the KNMC and given the panel seven days to submit a report. However, the committee was reportedly barred from entering the KNMC premises.
