The Nepal Medical Association (NMA) on Sunday urged Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to direct the Tribhuvan University (TU) to scrap its decision to grant affiliation to the Kathmandu National Medical College (KNMC). 

At a meeting with PM Deuba, NMA officials said that putting the affiliation ‘on hold’ would only provide a leeway to again provide consent to the KNMC to run MBBS course. 

On Saturday, the TU had decided to put on hold its decision of granting affiliation to the KNMC. Issuing a statement, the TU said the decision to grant affiliation to Kathmandu National Medical College “will not be implemented for now” after the decision to grant affiliation to the controversial medical college in Ghattekulo had drawn widespread criticism.

NMA General Secretary Dr Lochan Karki said they had urged PM Deuba, in his capacity as TU chancellor, to immediately scrap the decision on the KNMC. He said they had also asked the PM to not take any decision on the issue of medical college affiliation until Parliament endorses the Health Profession Education Bill.

“PM has assured us that he will immediately talk to TU office bearers on annulling the affiliation to the National,” said Dr Karki. 

On Saturday, PM Deuba had summoned TI Vice-chancellor Tirtha Khaniya and instructed him to scrap the decision on the Kathmandu-based National. Subsequently, the TU executive council decided to put the affiliation on hold and form a committee to investigate issues surrounding the National.

Meanwhile, Dr Govinda KC has threatened to go on another hunger strike from September 6 if the TU does not annul the affiliation to the KNMC. 

The TU executive council had granted affiliation to the medical school on July 27, grounding its decision on a Supreme Court verdict.

The country’s oldest varsity has claimed that the college had been grant the affiliation to run the MBBS course as per the order of SC’s division bench of then-Chief Justice Damodar Prasad Sharma and Justice Om Prakash Mishra on September 16, 2014. In the final hearing, the SC had argued that there was no reason to deny affiliation if the medical college meets the set criteria.

However, another SC decision on March 2, 2017 had stated that barring the affiliation was not a case of contempt of court, as claimed by the petitioner, since the government was working seriously in ending anomalies in the medical education sector. 

This college is an extension of the Birgunj-based National Medical College, owned by Basruddin Ansari, who is the CPN-UML mayoral candidate for the Birgunj Metropolitan City. Not only is the college registered with Health Ministry, it also lacks basic infrastructure and human resources required to run as a medical college.