The National Accreditation Council (NAC) of Guyana has listed the Ajeenkya D Y Patil University at Turkeyen (Guyana) Inc as registered even though its planned medical school has not even broken ground here as yet.
The listing is contained on the website of the NAC of the Ministry of Education at http://www.nac.gov.gy/. It is one of 29 institutions listed on the site. The listing will be seen as another anomaly in the manner in which state institutions are treating potential investors like the Indian university which has been seen as a favoured one with high government connections here.
Registration requires assessment of various areas including Legal, Policy and Regulatory Requirements, Governance and Administration, Quality Management System, Resource Management, Teaching – Learning Process, Review and Continuous Improvement. It is unclear how these assessments would have been done as the standards of the India-based facilities would not necessarily be replicated here.
The Ajeenkya D Y Patil University at Turkeyen (Guyana) Inc was officially incorporated by Rajendra Singh, the former chairman of the GuySuCo Board and current CEO, in April of 2013. Since its incorporation there has been no real strides in construction of any facility at Turkeyen.
The medical college was first spoken about locally by Health Minister Dr Bheri Ramsaran in March this year. In subsequent conversations with Stabroek News the minister stated that he was not aware of the college’s current stage of development.
Stabroek News was originally told by the Education Ministry that accreditation could take months with proposed faculty members already identified as well as a curriculum, however this was not done for the Ajeenkya D Y Patil University. The NAC will normally grant accreditation status for four years and will require annual status reports.
It was first publicised that the D Y Patil Group would be building a medical college at Turkeyen in March. The Group’s General Manager Dilip Kawad in a statement asserted that a first class medical college was needed in the Caribbean and that establishing an institution in Guyana was due the company’s interest in building strong links with Guyana.
The Group is not without controversy, as it was first revealed last year that a Memorandum of Understanding was quietly signed between the group and the Agriculture Ministry for the development of 65,000 hectares land in the Canje Basin. Stabroek News was told on several occasions that the Agriculture Ministry had only signed on for an initial 10,000 acres or 4,046 hectares. This number has fluctuated which prompted questions concerning the accuracy of the information being disseminated.
The last reference to the D Y Patil Group’s MoU came in the form of a release from the Government Information Agency (GINA) on July 20, 2013 about Guyana’s potential as an agricultural investment hotspot for Middle East investors.
There are several connections between the D Y Patil Group and Guyana. In February 2011, then President Bharrat Jagdeo received an honorary doctorate from the DY Patil University in Mumbai.
Dr Ajeenkya D Y Patil, the son of the founder of the DY Patil Group, has also been listed as Guyana’s Honorary Consul in Mumbai.
There was no announcement in Georgetown of such an appointment though the same GINA release of July 20 which referred to the MoU and the attractiveness of Guyana to Middle East investors also described Dr Patil as the Honorary Consul.
Announcements of such appointments are usually made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Both Jagdeo and Patil also have honorary doctorates from the University of Central Lancashire.
In the light of the MoU and subsequent developments, observers say it behoves the government to publicly describe its arrangements with the group including the financial details.
