Tripura not to sponsor nursing student s this year

FROM  A CORRESPONDENT

AGARTALA, Sept 22: Tripura government has decided not to sponsor any student this year for pursuing Nursing course in outside colleges and cancelled a list of 348 candidates belonging to SC, ST and OBC category selected earlier by the Health department.

“The state cabinet has decided not to sponsor any candidate for nursing courses this year,” Information Minister Bhanu Lal Saha told reporters while briefing cabinet decision.

The decision came at a time when the students were preparing to leave for their colleges for admission.

The strange thing is that there was no allegation of anomalies in the selection of the candidates who fall victim of the decision.

The minister also admitted that there was no allegation of anomalies about the selection of candidates but the decision preceded a suspicion about the authenticity of the colleges where they are being sent for study nursing.

“The colleges are claiming fees much less than previous years and that made us suspicious,” the minister said.

Nine colleges were selected by the health department through a tender and the lowest bidders were giver the contact.

The selected colleges are mostly situated in Kartaka, Telenga and Andhra Pradesh.

The cabinet decision virtually gave validity to an allegation earlier raised by Trimool Congress MLA Sudip Roy Barman accusing major corruption behind selection of colleges.

Reacting sharply to the decision he said it is unfortute that the cabinet instead of punishing the corrupt people made itself a party to it.

He demanded thorough probe into the matter and said the students should not be made victim in any case.

It is learnt that the TMC will raise the issue in the state Assembly on Friday and will demand that the state government must take responsibility to admit the students in recognized colleges and must bear all additiol expenses, if incurred.

The Assembly session began here today and on the first day it ended only after paying condolence to the CPI (M) MLA Samir Deb Sarkar. The former Chief Whip of the house died last month.