Patna, Oct. 24: The state government’s decision to transfer the management of all technical education institutions to Aryabhatta Knowledge University (AKU) has triggered anxiety among final-year students of Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH). AKU is yet to come out with its academic calendar even as final MBBS examinations are due in the next few months.

AKU — established last year with an aim to bring institutions of technical education like medical, engineering, management, pharmacy, nursing, law and others under one umbrella — is struggling. The university’s slow pace is troubling medical students all across the state as it has been assigned the task to conduct the examinations.

According to sources, Patna University used to conduct PMCH’s final-year examination in December every year, as Medical Council of India (MCI) norms make it mandatory for every university to announce the results by March so that the passouts can get registered as doctors.

A senior official at PMCH said: “We recently got the notification from the state government that the all the examinations will now be conducted by AKU. The university, however, is yet to come out with its academic calendar. Even the examination forms for final-year are not out yet nor has the registration begun.”

“In a meeting held last week, AKU officials had said that they did not even have the examiners’ panel to hold an examination at such a scale. I fear students’ career can be jeopardised as they will get late by a year and will miss out on postgraduation entrance examinations,” the official added.

He also said: “The state government should have worked out on these technicalities without taking such an abrupt decision to hand over the medical colleges to a university which is struggling to stand on its feet.”

Final-year students of the college are equally worried.

“The government has taken an irresponsible step. There is complete uncertainty about 100 students of our batch. AKU is not even recognised by the MCI yet. Besides, as all the government and private medical colleges are now affiliated to the university, students will all be treated alike everywhere. This is unfair as these colleges are so different from each other in quality of education and faculty,” said Raman Kumar, a final-year student at PMCH.

AKU vice-chancellor S.N. Guha, too, admitted the university had a challenging task ahead.

“We had first tried to convince the human resource development department to hand over the examination-related work of medical and engineering colleges starting next session. However, the government said that according to the AKU Act, the university will have to take the responsibility at once. Now, we are racing against time to make things work,” he said.