18-km back and forth for students of Physiotherapy College

Parveen Arora

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Karnal, October 14

Even though Physiotherapy College (PC) — part of the under-construction Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya University of Health Sciences (PDDUUHS) at Kutail village — boasts of a state-of-the-art building, students are being forced to attend classes at two places.

The majority of classes, including practical, clinical and theory, are being conducted at Kalpana Chawla Government Medical College (KCGMC) in Karnal, around 18 km from Kutail.

Sources said non-availability of regular faculty members and the lack of clinical material at Kutail were the main reasons behind it. There is one sanctioned post of professor-cum-principal, two of associate professors, four of assistant professors, and six of lecturers, but all have been lying vacant since the college was established in November 2018.

Only one post was filled by appointing an associate professor on contract. Faculty members of KCGMC have been given additional charge to teach students. The medical college has provided a bus for the convenience of students. “If KCGMC faculty members go to Kutail to conduct physiotherapy classes, their own classes of medical, nursing and other paramedical teaching and clinical works are affected. Hence, we prefer conducting classes of PC students at KCGMC,” said a faculty member, assigned the additional duty of physiotherapy.

Moreover, the number of students has increased from this session, as classes of all four batches have started, besides training of interns. At present, there are around 130 students of PC. “We are facing a lot of difficulties due to the non-availability of hostel in the building of physiotherapy and the lack of regular faculty. The government should look into it,” said a student. The authorities, meanwhile, claim that they have been making efforts to complete the syllabus and provide clinical material to students.

Dr Jagdish Chander Dureja, director, KCGMC-, said they had written to the government regarding the regular recruitment of faculty members for PC.