AIIMS PULSE becomes reason for Mass Bunking at Maharashtra Medical Colleges

Mumbai: Disciplinary issues seems to have struck over the major medical institutions across Mumbai after hundreds of medical students allegedly mass bunked to go on leisure trips under the pretext of participating in Pulse 2018.

The Pulse event is an annual socio-cultural literary and sports fest organised by the students union of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi. The fest sees participation from thousands of medicos from across the country.

This year, controversy erupted in the Maharashtra medical colleges in the name of participation.

"Nearly 100 second-year students (in the age group of 18 to 20) from each medical college went without taking any prior permission from their respective deans or teaching faculty. And those who had actually got permission to participate in Pulse 2018 went on tours to Shimla, Dehradun, Kullu-Manali, etc, instead," a highly-placed faculty member confirmed to Mid-Day.

Around 70 per cent student body, which went on a trip while bunking their classes, belong to the below mentioned five major Mumbai- based medical institutes:

• Grant Medical College


• Seth Gordhandas Sunderdas Medical College (GSMC) and the King Edward Memorial (KEM) Hospital,


• BYL Nair Medical College,


• B.T. Medical College & Dr R.N. Cooper Municipal General Hospital,


• Lokmanya Tilak Medical College and Municipal General Hospital,

Similar issues were seen in GMCs of Nanded, Nagpur, Yavatmal, Nashik, Miraj-Sangli. More than 100 students of BJ Medical College, Pune, took off after finishing Ganeshotsav festivities, the faculty informed

The mass bunk was discovered by a Nair Medical College faculty who found severe discrepancies in applications of the students to go to the fest. Many medicos had sought permission from the college management from September 18 to October 3, except they were reminded that the event duration was September 16 to September 22. Accordingly, the students apologized and submitted a fresh letter asking for leave grant from September 16 to 23, which they were subsequently provided.

However, instead of resuming college from September 24, the students bunked the classes and showed up directly on October 4 causing severe hindrance in classes.

Mid-day adds that when the students came finally back to the medical college, they were asked to show their participation certificates from the event and were asked as to why they were days late than the closing of the event. They were also grilled on the details of the events, including which sports they had participated in, colour of their jersey, names of teammates, number of players, etc.

Taking cognition medicos lying, the parents of these students were called upon on October 6 and warned of consequences if their children repeated such a stunt henceforth.

One professor has already written an official letter to the Vice Chancellor, Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS), Nashik, enlightening them of the issue.

Dr Dileep Mhaisekar, Professor, MUHS, Nashik informed the daily, "We at the university level do not handle students' attendance and permission issues for such events; it is dealt with by the deans of respective colleges. We may initiate appropriate action if the deans write to us and give us the names of students involved; it might be considered during allotment of examination hall ticket, for which attendance is crucial"

Dr Pravin Shingare, Director, Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) said that no information regarding the incident has reached the medical authority yet. He told Mid-Day, "I am not aware of... If such a thing has happened, it is an act of indiscipline. I will seek information from all medical college deans across the state, and appropriate action will be taken against the students."

When contacted, one of the chief coordinators of Pulse 2018, said, "It is unfortunate that medical students stooped to such a level... We have clear instructions issued that if the number of students from a particular college is more than 10, they need to obtain a letter of permission or no objection from their dean. And all payments from students are accepted only through demand draft."