Although they initially maintained that they were there to oversee the institute's activities, the motive behind Health Minster Adhikari's visit was reportedly different--to persuade the BPKIHS officials to upgrade the institute into a university that could provide affiliations to medical colleges.Officials of BPKIHS, who were present at a meeting held with the Minister Adhikari and Secretary Shrestha in the vice-chancellor's cabin, said that Minister Adhikari, who is also the pro-chancellor of the institute, himself had floated the idea of upgrading the Institute into a full-fledged university.
"BPKIHS has matured a lot over the course of time. I think time is ripe for upgrading the institute into a university. The government is ready to do its part if you people and the residents of Dharan start pushing for it," said Adhikari.
It was not unusual for the minister to come with the express purpose of upgrading the academically and infrastructure-wise sound BPKIHS into a full-fledged university. Officials at BPKIHS had also been piling pressure on the government to upgrade the institute from time to time.
At the time when Minister Adhikari was trying to persuade BPKHIS officials to mount pressure on the government for upgrading the institute, a fast-unto-death protest of Dr Govinda KC demanding clear policies on medical education and stricter rules on granting affiliation to medical colleges had just ended. His protest had posed a major hurdle for the government from providing affiliations to new medical colleges.
At that time, Minister Adhikari was severely criticized for pushing for upgrading the institute into university just to provide affiliations for new medical colleges.
Junior Residential Welfare Society (JRWS) of BPKIHS had rebuffed the minister's proposal.
A report submitted by Vice Chancellor Dr. Bal Bhadra Prasad Das in the senate meeting of the BPKIHS, which was convened a week after the minister's visit, had mentioned a plan to upgrade the institute into university.
"After college affiliations were not possible from Kathmandu University and Institute of Medicine, everyone's eyes were on BPKIHS. The plan must have been first to upgrade BPKIHS into a complete university and gradually start granting affiliations to new medical colleges," said Dr. Santosh Dhungana, president of JRWS, adding, "We still don't have sufficient human resources to provide a full-fledged specialist services to our patients. So, we thought it is not right to upgrade the institute and warned of protest if the institute went ahead with the plan."
He said that after attempts of getting affiliation from IoM and other universities failed because of Dr KC's protest, medical mafias have been trying to upgrade the institute into an autonomous university so that they could get affiliations.
Officials, who were present at the meeting between Health Minister Adhikari and BPKIHS officials, had said that though the directives governing the institute allows it to be promoted to a university, the institute cannot be upgraded unless an Act of January 18, 1993, which led to the establishment of the institute, is amended. So, the senate meeting had directed the BPKIHS to first amend the act.
Some officials said many medical colleges have come to BPHIKS seeking affiliation since the senate meeting.
According to Registrar Tul Bahadur Shrestha, a proposal seeking amendment in the act has already been forwarded to the Health Ministry.
However, Vice-chancellor Das said that the institute is being upgraded to university to bolster its reputation as one of the prestigious institutes of the country. "We are not seeking the upgrade just to be able to provide affiliations to medical colleges," added he.
BPKHIS, which was established in 1993 with financial support from India, has been currently operating dental and nursing college. Similarly, it is also running educational programs like MBBS, BDS, MA and MD.
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