The Hindu : New Delhi News : New health scheme for teachers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 27, 2006

New Delhi

New Delhi

New health scheme for teachers

Delhi University is all set to make its campus "healthier". Determined to see that the teachers are "fit", the University has launched some initiatives to get the campus more involved. One of the most important initiatives concerns reimbursement of expenses for medical treatment. It will now be possible for teachers to go to a hospital authorised by DU and get treatment without making any payments immediately.

The hospital will check the credentials of the teacher and directly deduct the amount from the University's account, which will settle the amount against the teacher's salary. Nearly 27 hospitals will be accessible for the teachers.

"All that will be needed is the teacher's identity card to get treatment. Of course, it will depend on whether the hospital has the required room at that time, but otherwise the person will not need to make any immediate payments. The hospital will deduct it from the University's account after ascertaining the credentials," says D. M. Banerjee, Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the World University Services (WUS) Health Centre.

But that is not all. To ensure there is better awareness about the facilities provided by it, the health centre has also come out with a new booklet containing all necessary details. "We realised that most people were not really aware of the facilities provided by us. The booklet will tell them where to go and what to do," adds Prof. Banerjee.

Also planned is expansion of the University Ayurvedic Centre as it has been gaining popularity over the years.

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The JNU Vice-Chancellor, B.B. Bhattacharya, has been setting records of a different kind. Known for running late into the nights, the Academic Council meetings of the University have been a short affair ever since Prof. Bhattacharya took over.

While the usual duration of the meetings had been an average 12 hours, the last two meetings under him saw all agendas being passed in just three hours. "A lot of people have been telling me that it is surprising that we managed to achieve this. But we have been making sure that all the important subjects are discussed before being taken up in the meeting. In fact, I don't understand how the meetings could have taken so long," quips Prof. Bhattacharya. Delhi University's Academic Council should perhaps know. Its last meeting lasted over 10 hours.

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Ragging may be the way to do it in Delhi University, but seniors at Jawaharlal Nehru University across the city clearly are a different lot. Beginning rather `early', seniors here welcome prospective freshers with a lesson in how to get into the campus.

In what has come to be a tradition by now, the JNU Students' Union helps conduct special classes for students appearing for the entrance examination of various schools here. And if past record is anything to go by, quite a number of students benefit from the classes.

"I did not think much of it earlier, but then I started noticing that a number of freshers that we saw later had been to the counselling centre. It is a good feeling because a number of students like to know what kind of questions come and how they should approach them," said a JNUSU member.

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The Management Development Institute (MDI) at Gurgaon has now received global accreditation from the Association of MBA. It is the first B-School in India and only the second in Asia to receive this accreditation from the UK-based Association for four of its programmes.

They include the post-graduate programme in management, post-graduate programme in human resource management, national management programme and executive management programme.

-- Lakshmi B. Ghosh

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