Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, April 04 2010:
Even as the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) is yet to obtain approval of the Dental Council of India (DCI) to establish a dental college, six dental chairs have been procured.
However, the dental chairs are lying unused as there is no room to install them, said an official source.
The dental chairs were purchased after necessary fund was sanctioned by the Ministry of Health.
RIMS authority are planning to install the dental chairs inside the structure now serving as TB clinic after shifting the clinic to some other place.
The dental chairs should be installed by engineers sent by the company or suppliers from whom the chairs were purchased.
Water and power connections, and auto-drainage system are the pre-requisites for installing the dental chairs.
The costly dental chairs may become non-functional if any of the intricate circuits embedded inside the chairs are attacked by rodents.
As such, there is urgent need to install the dental chairs, conveyed the source.
According to RIMS Director Dr L Fimate, the dental chairs were procured for the proposed dental college.
However, the official source maintained that the Ministry of Health sanctioned the amount for purchasing the dental chairs in response to a request of RIMS authority to a visiting team of Health Ministry to increase the number of dental chairs in RIMS.
Besides not seeking approval of the DCI for the proposed dental college, the RIMS authority has not yet arranged basic infrastructure like buildings etc.
Interestingly, the RIMS authority, during a meeting of the dental college sub-committee held in February, gave assurance that buildings required for the dental college would be arranged by March 31.But no such arrangement can be observed till date.
Notably, the DCI Secretary sent a written intimation to the RIMS Director on January 28 this year asking to send application for establishment of the proposed dental college in the academic session 2010-2011 within 10 days failing any proposal for the dental college
would be rejected.