Kolkata: The agitating medical students at the Calcutta Medical College and Hospital (CMCH) on Monday lifted their indefinite hunger strike, after the college council agreed to meet their demands of allotting rooms in the newly built college hostel.
In a significant development, Anil Verma, the current principal secretary, health, has been replaced by Rajiva Sinha, who was in the post of additional chief secretary of the MSME department. Also, Director of Medical Education (DME) Prof. Dr. Debasish Bhattacharaya has been replaced by Partha Pratim Chakraborty.
The college council meeting had been convened by the new officiating principal Ashoke Bhadra and was attended by heads of departments and other officials. It decided that the modalities of allotment of seats in the new hostel building will be changed, after getting final clearance from the state Health department.
Meanwhile, prior to the withdrawal of hunger strike, the minister of state for health Chandrima Bhattacharya in the Assembly urged the students to stop the agitation as it had been hampering the health services in the hospital.
It was decided in the meeting that the students of second, third and fourth years will be allotted rooms in the two floors of the new building, which was built for the first year students. It will be given temporarily to the second, third and fourth year students, the college council decided.
The students withdrew their hunger strike that lasted for 14 long days, after receiving a written copy of the college council's decision.
Following the meeting, the CMCH authorities have issued a Press statement, saying that two floors of the new hostel building will be allotted to the senior students getting admission in various academic batches through open and transparent counselling, purely on a temporary basis.
Prof Bhadra also assured the students that repair work of all the hostels will be undertaken on an urgent basis. He ended the hunger strike of the students by giving them fruit juice. The indefinite hunger strike was started by six students of CMCH on July 10 and were later joined by 15 others on July 19. According to the hospital sources, the agitation was withdrawn at around 2 pm on Monday.
The second, third and fourth year students had started the agitation, demanding accommodation in the new hostel building. They alleged that the hostel rooms they had been staying in lacked minimum infrastructure and hygiene.
Three of the protesting students fell ill during the indefinite hunger strike and one of them had been hospitalised. He was, however, discharged from the hospital on Monday and the condition of the other two is stated to be stable.
According to a senior official of CMCH, a new seven-storeyed hostel building will soon come up at the hospital premises, having a capacity to accommodate 500 students.
Once the building comes up, the senior students will be shifted there, while the existing 11-storeyed building will be allotted to the first year students as per the guidelines of the Medical Council of India (MCI).