The report, a copy of which Republica has obtained, has found sufficient grounds to suspect the involvement of IOM officials in many irregularities and claimed that the Dean’s Office refused to provide necessary documents to help the investigation.[break]
The report has expressed reservations about the provision of IOM officials giving 85 marks out of the 100-mark interview for foreign students appearing in entrance examinations for MD/MS program. It says the provision substantiates the allegations that IOM officials and TU Teaching Hospital (TUTH) campus chief have been taking fat sums.
“The dean, who doesn’t have anything to do with the subject concerned, gives 25 marks, other IOM officials and campus chief give 15 marks each for a total of 85 while the head of the department concerned gives just 15 marks in the interview,” the report points out.
The report says the Dean’s Office and TU did not show any interest to provide the disputed documents regarding the allegation of taking money from students in the entrance exams and points out need for ‘serious probe by an all-powerful commission to find out the facts’. It also slammed the practice of sharing appointments at IOM among political parties and blamed lack of coordination between such office-bearers appointed on quotas from separate parties for the 17-day strike at the TUTH from March 15.
It has also expressed reservations about the IOM presenting an expensive vehicle to a TU official despite the financial limitations of the institute. It has also found that campus chief (Dr Ram Prasad Uprety) has indiscriminately recruited many fake persons on the premises of providing relief to children of martyrs and injured persons during Janaandolan II.
The committee -- formed on March 31 under the chairmanship of former education secretary Jayaram Giri -- says that doctors and technicians have made the hospital a means of serving their personal interests by working at private clinics and hospitals during duty hours. The report has hinted at irregularities in buying equipment and said the management has shown no interest in repairing and maintaining existing equipment.
The committee has also found the IOM giving affiliations to private medical colleges on whimsical grounds. “The fact that documents of monitoring of these colleges have been kept secret leaves no ground to believe that IOM officials themselves have not been involved in give and take,” the report says. Similarly, the committee has also expressed reservations about the IOM lowering the pass marks in entrance exams of BDS in 2065/66 to 40 marks from the stipulated 50.
The report has suggested forming a separate committee of senior specialists not including any IOM officials to conduct future entrance exams. It has also suggested provision of a singular entrance exams for all native and foreign students to get admission in all private and government medical colleges in the country to ensure quality.
The report has also pointed out irregularities in appointing unqualified persons as visiting professors, and cited mistakes in publishing results of entrance exams and under-utilization of limited resources of hospital. It has also asked for investigation into the last five years of operation and not just the last year as the committee was mandated.
The only saving grace for IOM Dean Dr Arun Sayami is that the committee found that Sayami’s wife Jamuna was appointed matron of TUTH before he was appointed dean.
Acting on the report, Education Minister Sarvendra Nath Shukla on Wednesday issued a six-point written directive to TU vice-chancellor to take corrective measures and take necessary action against the guilty to ensure that such mistakes are not repeated in future.
Meanwhile, the heads of departments of TUTH and the dean met Wednesday and agreed to conduct the cancelled entrance exams of MD/MS and third year exams of the post graduate exams in early June.
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