Maharashtra Govt Demands Speedy Approval For Pharmacy Courses As Admissions Remain Stalled

Mumbai: With the admissions to pharmacy colleges stuck due to a delayed course approval process, the Maharashtra government has sought quicker approvals from the Pharmacy Council of India (PCI).

In a letter to PCI, the state higher and technical education department last month called attention to the impact of the delay on academic sessions at pharmacy colleges and demanded that the regulator expedite the approvals for new as well as existing programmes. Even as the admissions to other professional institutes such as engineering and management are being wrapped up, not a single student has found entry to all three levels of pharmacy courses - diploma, degree, and masters.

The delay, which has become a recurring problem in the last few years, has caused anxiety among thousands of aspirants, while colleges are staring at a likely truncated first year of the course.

About The Representation Made To The Pharmacy Council Of India

In its representation to PCI, the state said that the academic year is expected to begin in July and continue till May-June, but thanks to the deferred admissions, the students will likely lose several months of classes. The government also pointed out that while the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), which regulates engineering and management colleges, has fixed September 15 as the cut-off date for admission, the PCI has extended the approvals till November 30.

“The degree programmes are likely to be hit more by this delay as they follow a semester pattern - it's still manageable with the yearly pattern of the diploma course,” said an official from the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE).

To make matters worse, the state doesn't have any consolidated information about how many new and current courses have so far been greenlit and how many are pending. This is because PCI lacks a centralised Information Management System (IMS) to keep the state bodies updated about the status of approvals. A petition has been filed by some pharma institutes challenging the necessity of yearly approval for the continuation of their courses and seeking a one-time approval instead.

Decision Stayed

While a single-judge bench of Justice Justice C Hari Shankar on July 1 accepted the plea, the decision was stayed by a division bench of the court on July 19. There's another reason for the process getting stretched this year. While PCI had decided not to permit any new Pharma institute, course, or even division in the state for the academic year 2024-25, the Bombay High Court ruled against it.