Never mind conducting examinations and course syllabi, plans are afoot to make the university a centre for medical research. But even as the state government lays the foundation stone a Rs 30-crore campus -- coinciding with its first anniversary on June 10 -- ironically, questions are still being raised about the very need of such a university.

The apex body governing medical education in the country, the Medical Council of India (MCI), recently set up a panel to study the benefits of health universities vis-a-vis general universities.

Critics delightfully point out that the university, to which 191 institutions are affiliated, has done nothing so far in this regard. Infact, other than conducting a Common Entrance Test (CET) for admissions to medical courses -- for the first time in the state -- it has been battling lack of staff, space and other constraints. The bottimline: it has nothing to show, critics in the medical fraternity say.

Despite its claims -- doing away with the Allowed to Keep Terms system, holding training courses for teachers -- the university has only earned the tag of being `regressive', no thanks to the haste with which it was set up by a health minister overanxious to please his constituency. Consider this: most medical students were not even aware that they would be administered by the health university when they took the CET in May!

Take the pharmacy course, for instance. Teachers point out that the faculty should never have been brought under the MUHS as pharmacy is a technical course as prescribed under the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) guidelines. ``It has nothing to do with medicine. Now, we shall lose the AICTE grant,''says one principal. As if that was not bad enough, the university, to standardise course content across the state, changed the first year pharmacy syllabus mid-semester in December throwing study schedules into chaos. The syllabi of medical courses were also revised, diluting the course content, teachers say.

However, the university's attempts to standardise medical education have stunned the fraternity, not because its intentions are suspect but because its approach is atavistic. With a view to equating the quality of education imparted by the more prestigious colleges like those in Mumbai with their counterparts elsewhere in the state, the university plans to dilute the course content of the former rather than upgrade the later, sources in the MUHS explain. This has already been done in faculties like pharmacy, ayurveda and unani. Students and teachers alike, who have voiced their disgust, told Express Newsline that their protests have been consistently ignored.

The fraternity has alsorepeatedly questioned the need for medical and health universities in the first place. Maharashtra is the fourth state to set up such a university, on the lines of those in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. But, says Dr K R Shetty, Director, Cumballa Hill Heart and Research Institute, ``It is difficult to introduce innovations under any university. And when institutions all over are receiving autonomy, to revert to the bureaucratic control of a university is regressive.''

The sentiment against the health university is so strong in Mumbai that the University Department of Chemical Technology and he SNDT University, which are autonomous bodies, have thus far refused to follow the MUHS guidelines. UDCT sources say a meeting was convened early this year and the two institutions were finally permitted to continue with their own syllabi and examinations for the current academic year. Says Dr Aher, who insists that all medical courses have been brought under the MUHS: ``A problem is there, but it will besorted out soon.''

Also, staffing been a problem from the inception of the MUHS. The current staff are on deputation from other universities.

University authorities like Management Council, Board of Studies, are all filled with nominated people. Under the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences Act passed on January 21, 1999, elections should be held within six months or one year of the implementation of the act. But considering its position, and the flak it earened after the registrar quit just before the CET citing unavailibility of adequate staff, how far it will succeed in filling up the posts remains to be seen.

Dr Aher though is confident. He says, ``Thirty to forty posts were created recently and we're filling up the vacancies.'' Also, as the university has been provided with one crore worth of computers, less manpower is needed, he adds. It is another matter that the proposed online network linking colleges to the university has not yet come up. The health minister however replies, ``It isgoing to take time. After all, the university is just a one-year-old baby.''