AHMEDABAD: The name of Dr Madhu Panjwani, associate professor of medicine with Bhavnagar Government Medical College, features among 161 medical faculty members transferred on Wednesday.She was assigned the new posting at Junagadh GMERS Medical College. The only problem — Dr Panjwani’s family confirmed that she had succumbed to cancer in February this year.On the day when the CAG report for Gujarat mentioned ‘en masse’ transfers of faculty members ahead of Medical Council of India (MCI) inspections in the state medical colleges, the second set of transfers in two days took the total number of transferred faculty members to 233.While Dr Panjwani’s name would be featured as one of the faculty members, another faculty member who is on a long leave also features in one of the GMERS colleges’ list, improving the teacher-student ratio on paper — an exercise ahead of the inspection. Dr Hemant Mehta , dean of the Bhavnagar Government Medical College, could not be contacted for his comment.It is an open secret of the state’s medical education system, said experts, where the faculty members — ranging from professors to tutors — get transferred ahead of the MCI inspection that takes place in December for new colleges or those colleges that have increased seats.According to the orders, a majority of the transferred faculty members have been given posting in Gujarat Medical Education and Research Society (GMERS) colleges in Junagadh, Himmatnagar and Vadnagar, founded in less than two years, along with government medical colleges in Bhavnagar and Surat where the seats in undergraduate and postgraduate courses have been increased.The transfers feature 101 faculty members from the BJ Medical College in Ahmedabad alone, hampering the education of UG and PG students. “If there were transfers from government to government colleges, there would have been no issue but here the government has decided to allocate resources to the GMERS set-up — which charges much higher fees at Rs 3-4 lakh per annum compared to Rs 25,000 in government colleges. If the same teacher-to-student ratio was reported by a private college, chances would be high to get their recognition revoked,” said a senior faculty member in a medical college on condition of anonymity.The transfers happen from places like BJ Medical College that does not have MCI inspection. The inspection is a necessity for new colleges and those increasing seats in a given academic year.Experts said that it is not unsurprising that the faculty members remain only on paper at their newly appointed colleges once the inspections get over. They then return to their original positions.

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