Ayush ministry skirts rules, ignores CCIM to approve 138 ayurveda colleges

The ministry ignored the Central Council of Indian Medicine, which found these colleges to be unfit to run undergraduate and graduate courses

Between 2016 and 2018, the Ayush ministry permitted as many as 138 new and existing ayurveda colleges to run graduate and postgraduate courses in ayurvedic medicine and surgery, even though these colleges lacked teachers, infrastructure, equipment and other staff mandated as the bare minimum by the law. These ill-equipped and understaffed colleges admitted thousands of students.  

The Ayush ministry permitted these colleges to run courses by overruling the recommendations of the experts and doctors on board the statutory Central Council of Indian Medicine (CCIM). The council, as required by law, had carried out inspections of these colleges and found