Pharma colleges in a tizzy as statutory bodies issue contradictory admission rules in Maharashtra

Two statutory medical bodies have published different rules for admission into M. Pharm (The Master of Sciences of Pharmacy), causing confusion among the 156 pharmacy colleges across the state, 20 of which are in Mumbai. The Central government's new regulations state that the Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) will now govern admission into the two year M. Pharm course. However, the rules of the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), which previously governed this course, continue to exist.

The lack of clarity and the contradictory information issued by both bodies has befuddled colleges.

	PCI	AICTE
Students intake in the institute	PCI says each college can take only 15 students.	AICTE says that each college can take in 18 to 36 students.
Student to teacher ratio	The PCI has said that there ought to be one teacher for every 3 students	AICTE says there should be one teacher for every 12 students
	PCI has instructed the colleges to approach them for registration by 29 February, and told them that the PCI will video-record the facilities and infrastructure of the college, before approving its registration. The colleges have also been told that if they fail to register with the PCI, they will not be accommodated into the admission process by the Directorate of Technical Education (DTE), who are co-ordinating the process.	Colleges were told they could apply to the AICTE online by 22 February

Dr MN Saraf, principal of Bombay College of Pharmacy told Mumbai Mirror, "We have received the new PCI norms and are trying to understand how to deal with the norms of both statutory bodies. We recently met with the DTE to try to bring some clarity to this matter." The PCI is also trying to solve the confusion. A member of Executive council of the PCI said, "We hope that there will be more clarity on these differences soon. The representatives of the PCI and AICTE recently met. We're going to meet again to discuss the issue in greater detail."

Source: http://www.mumbaimirror.com/mumbai/others/Pharma-colleges-in-a-tizzy-as-statutory-bodies-issue-contradictory-admission-rules/articleshow/50953741.cms