Madhya Pradesh Orders Closure Of 66 Nursing Colleges In Scam Probe

The Madhya Pradesh government has ordered the closure of 66 nursing colleges across 31 districts in accordance with the High Court order in the alleged nursing college scam being probed by the CBI.

The scam pertains to gross irregularities in the functioning of several nursing colleges which lacked infrastructure while some existed only on paper.

Chief Minister Mohan Yadav has directed the closure of 66 nursing colleges across 31 districts in accordance with the High Court order, as per the CMO.

Mr Yadav has directed officials to ensure that no student of these nursing colleges is affected and arrangements be made for them to appear for examination.

The Commissioner of Medical Education Department has sent the list of these colleges to the respective district collectors and told them to act as per the HC's directives, the CMO said.

The recognition of these colleges was already cancelled.

The action was also started against such colleges in several districts including Indore.

The list includes eight colleges in Betul, six in Bhopal, five in Indore, four each in Chhatarpur, Dhar and Sehore, three in Narmadapuram, two each in Bhind, Chhindwara, Jabalpur, Jhabua, Mandla, Rewa, Seoni and Shahdol.

A college each in Alirajpur, Anuppur, Barwani, Burhanpur, Dewas, Gwalior, Khandwa, Khargone, Morena, Panna, Sagar, Tikamgarh, Ujjain, Umaria, Vidisha and Sheopur also figures in the list.

"The CBI and Anti-Corruption Bureau, Bhopal, had constituted seven core teams and three to four support teams, comprising officials from CBI, those nominated by nursing colleges in Madhya Pradesh and patwaris in compliance with the directions of the high court," a CBI spokesperson had said earlier.

Notably, a CBI official was recently arrested while allegedly accepting a Rs 10 lakh bribe from the chairman of a nursing college under the agency's scanner. Following the incident, the CBI terminated the services of its inspector Rahul Raj.

The CBI probe into the nursing college scam case in Madhya Pradesh has revealed that its officers were allegedly collecting Rs 2 to Rs 10 lakh from each institute to give favourable reports after inspection, the Central probe agency said earlier.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)