File picture of nurses taking oath

Bhubaneswar, Dec. 21: The fate of 1,885 nursing students hangs in balance as the training institutes they graduated from are not being recognised by the Indian Nursing Council.

The council has refused to register the students — which is a pre-condition for jobs.

Moreover, thousands of other students, who enrolled in 68 unrecognised institutes, have been debarred from appearing in the examinations. Interestingly, the Odisha government does not have details of the exact number of such ill-fated students. Health minister Damodar Rout today admitted this in the Assembly.

While the council has recognised 149 nursing training institutes in the state, 68 are yet to be recognised.

Expressing his helplessness, Rout said that the Odisha government’s role was limited to issuing no-objection certificates. Before the institutes were set up, it was the council, which used to grant recognition and oversee the academic side.

“After it came to our notice, we have decided not to give NOCs to new institutes unless they have the permission from the council,” Rout told The Telegraph.

Incidentally, there are large-scale vacancies of nurses in the government-sector alone. The government is proposing to create 14,000 additional posts of nurses to meet the requirement. In the private sector, there are proposals to open 14 more medical colleges and hospitals. The demand for nurses is expected to grow.

Rout told the Assembly that 1,885 nursing students had taken the test conducted by the nursing board following Orissa High Court’s intervention. But, they are still not getting the council’s registration number.

Members cutting across party lines expressed concern on the issue and wanted to know from the government what steps it had taken to resolve the issue.

“The Odisha government can’t escape from its responsibility since it had given no-objection certificates to 68 institutes. It should give protection to these students, who are suffering without any fault of theirs. The government should have gone to the Supreme Court to protect the interest of the students,” said Congress MLA Prafulla Majhi.

Rout said the Odisha government had approached the council to consider the case of 1,885 students, who had passed the examination. “I hope their problem will be resolved soon,” he said.

However, the minister pleaded his helplessness in case of the students, who had been debarred by the high court from taking the examination, as the admissions had taken place without obtaining the council’s recognition.

Not convinced with the argument, Opposition members wanted to know whether the Odisha government did have any monitoring mechanism to see that the nursing institutes obtained the council’s recognition before admitting students.

The minister said the fact that these institutes did not have recognition came to fore only in 2006 following allegations.

“The Odisha government is now making stipulations before giving no-objection certificates. The applicants should obtain recognition from the council before starting admission,” said Rout.

In another development, the Odisha government has decided to open seven nursing training centres in the government sectors in Boudh, Sonepur, Nabarangpur, Kandhamal, Kalahandi, Sundergarh and Dhenkanal after obtaining the Centre’s approval, he said.