The machine room at Government Pharmacy Institute. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

The state’s only government pharmacy college does not have adequate infrastructure for its students, who have to do with a single classroom.

Situated in Agamkuan, the Government Pharmacy Institute runs a diploma in pharmacy and a BPharm course. There are at least 420 students at the institute with only a single classroom. Sometimes, theory classes are also conducted in the laboratories.

Attending practical lessons there are a stretch, though, because of the lack of equipment. The institute has a lecture hall, but it has turned into an area for the teachers to relax.

Rajesh Kumar, a fourth-year student, said: “Last month, we attended a lecture in the laboratory because the students of diploma in pharmacy were appearing for their internal examination. The laboratory neither has proper seating arrangements nor is it clean. We somehow cleaned the benches to attend the lesson, but many of the students had to stand for the entire duration of the lecture.”

The institute opened in 1958 when only diploma in pharmacy was offered. The four-year BPharm course was started in 2009 leading to the space crunch.

Apart from the space crunch, the budding pharmacists are also facing problems when it comes to their research skills.

“There is no burner or apparatus for sterilisation of equipment. There is no tablet punching machine (to compress powder into tablets of uniform size and weight) and a source of water in the laboratory,” said Abhishek Kumar, a second-year student.

Several high-end machines — necessary in researching whether a drug is up to the mark, substandard or fake — are also lying defunct.

Rajiv Ranjan Prasad, principal of the college, said: “Work on a new laboratory is on at the under-construction building of the college.”