Diploma students at the Government Pharmacy Institute have stopped the college from functioning the past four days, dissatisfied with delays in conducting their examinations.

The 2013-15 batch students initially launched the protest but soon, they were joined by the two next batches. Officials and staff members are barred from entering the college during the working hours, with the students claiming that neither the health department nor the college principal have approached them.

The students have three demands - regularise the diploma in pharmacy course, affiliate the course to the Aryabhatta Knowledge University (which would help regularise the academic schedule), and increase their stipend from the Re 1 daily for 90 days of internship after the course, a system followed since 1958.

Sources in the college said the students' demands were not unreasonable as sessions of all the three batches DPharma have been delayed.

"The DPharma course is a two-year course but the authorities have turned it into a four-year course by not conducting exams on time," said Rahul Kumar, a student in the 2013-15 batch. "My first year examinations were held in 2015 instead of 2014 when it should have been conducted. Then, second-year examination's dates were extended thrice this year - dates were fixed three times and then cancelled a day prior to the exam. This is torture."

The diploma course is not affiliated to any university but the Pharmacy Council of India - the regulatory body tasked with strengthening and upgrading the pharmacy curriculum - has accorded the permission to conduct exam of the DPharma courses to the pharmacy exam committee under the health department. The committee's chairman is state drug controller Ravindra Kumar Sinha, who has to decide the date of the exam then to be conducted by Prabhat Kumar, the controller of exam, health services.

Rajat Ranjan, a student who enrolled in the course in 2014, said his session is delayed as well.

"Our first-year examination was conducted on time but the results were announced in 2016. Now we are waiting for the dates of our second-year exam. The 2015-17 batch students' condition is even worse as their first year examination has not even been held yet."

Neither Sinha nor Prabhat answered their cellphones when The Telegraph called them, and Shailendra Kumar, principal of the Government Pharmacy Institute, said he could not do anything. "What can we do if the examination is not being conducted on time? We have to conduct 180 days of classes according to schedule. We have completed the course but we are not supposed to conduct the exam," said Shailendra.

A teacher at the college said on condition of anonymity: "The government has made old horses caretakers of the DPharma course. State drug controller Ravindra Kumar Sinha is already a busy man, with numerous responsibilities because of the recent findings of fake and substandard drugs. Examination controller, health services, Prabhat Kumar heads the microbiology department in Nalanda Medical College. How can these officials take care of two responsibilities at a time? The BPharma course of the institute has already been affiliated to Aryabhatta Knowledge University which conducts regular exam... why can't the department get the DPharma course affiliated to AKU?"