Medical college announces Rs 500 penalty for missing morning lectures, sparks controversy

Varanasi: Controversy has erupted over a recent order issued by a Uttar Pradesh based Private medical college that has imposed Rs 500 fine on its students for missing morning lectures.

Sharing the copy of the order on Twitter, Dr. Meet Gohnia of Gujarat asked if the National Medical Commission permits such a a form of penalty for missing classes.

The concerned letter has been issued by Bhadwar baded Heritage Institute of Medical Sciences (HIMS). Taking note of the absence of students from the morning classes, the Principal cum CMS of the medical college issued the order on 14.11.2022 and stated, "It has been observed that many students are missing morning classes which start at 08:30 am. Institute administration has taken a serious view of this. Today morning in a class of 2019 Batch, very few students were present. This trend is seen mostly in 2019 & 2020 Batch. They are in habit of missing morning classes."

In order to deal with this problem, the college has decided to charge the absent students with Rs 500 for missing the morning class. Further, the college will also communicate about this to the parents of the students.

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"To overcome this problem, it has been decided that a fine of Rs 500 will be imposed on students of all batches, who miss the morning class. In addition, E-mail will be sent to their parents informing them that their wards are not attending classes, although they are present in the Hostel," further stated the letter.

Therefore, the college has directed the teaching faculties for submitting the attendance of morning classes to the Principal's office every day. In this regard, the order stated, "All HODs are requested to inform faculty members to send attendance of morning classes to the office of the Principal every day by 11:00 a.m. after taking the morning class. List of absentees will be sent to Finance Dept for necessary action & to Student Section for informing their parents by mail," it added.

Questioning such a move by the college, Dr. Gohnia, who is also a standing committee member of Indian Medical Association Junior Doctors' Network (IMA-JDN) mentioned in a Tweet, "As per NMC norms, 75% attendance is necessary & it's on Students to make themselves eligible for exams."

Reacting to the Tweet, another doctor opined, "And then distribute those 500's (collected from those who didn't attend ) into those who attended ! Do it for a day or two , automatically everyone will start attending. Jokes apart , this is not acceptable at all. Let students be mature enough to choose what they want to do."

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