MP’s ghost nursing colleges: Degrees, but no students or training
An HT ground investigation across six districts in Madhya Pradesh has revealed a flourishing illegal business of colleges that exist only in name
The path to the building is a dirt track, muddy, and showing deep tyre tracks. The two-storey building, constructed across 5,000 square feet is a km off Sunderpur village’s main road, located on the Agra-Bombay highway. It boasts no main gate, nor a board to indicate what it claims to be — only thorn bushes to prevent cattle from entering. It is afternoon of a late July day and the building has no business being deserted. Instead, we are greeted by an elderly man, who identifies himself as Sultan.

This is not meant to be a deserted, non-functional shell of a building. It should have been full of young people training to be nurses. In government records, it still is. It is registered as the DD Swami Nursing College, Morena , with 60 students studying for a General Nursing and Midwifery nursing degree.
Inside the building, one deserted room has been earmarked as the principal’s room; the female ward has empty almirahs and dirt; the male ward has fifty hospital beds still in their dusty plastic wraps, covered in spider webs. Nearly every other room is locked.
For years, nursing colleges that exist only in name to provide fraudulent degrees for money, or that run in open violation of government regulations have been one of Madhya Pradesh’s healthcare’s worst kept secrets. An HT ground investigation across six districts in Madhya Pradesh, that entailed physical visits to the registered locations of 16 nursing colleges across one month, and a detailed study of reams of official documents has revealed a flourishing illegal business of colleges that exist only in name, others that function, but violate all regulations, and instructors who somehow teach in colleges hundreds of kilometres apart at the same time.
THE LEGAL BATTLE
On 11 January, Vishal Baghel, president of the law students association — it was formed in 2021 to create legal awareness and raise issues of corruption in education — filed a public interest litigation before the Jabalpur Bench of the Madhya Pradesh high court. His petition claimed that 55 nursing colleges started in the year 2020-2021 in tribal areas in Madhya Pradesh were being run fraudulently, lacked essential infrastructure including buildings, laboratories and libraries, and violated statutory provisions.
On April 19, chief justice Ravi Malimath and justice Purushaindra Kumar Kaurav of the Madhya Pradesh high court asked the MP Nurses Registration Council to produce the existing material pertaining to each one of the nursing colleges situated in the state. On May 12, the court granted permission to Baghel to go through the available documentation. Overall, the 453 nursing colleges in Madhya Pradesh have a total of 85,000 students that study General Nursing and Midwifery and BSC Nursing in three-year courses with fees ranging from ₹60,000 to 80,000 a year.
The Jabalpur petition wasn’t the first time the issue reached the doors of the Madhya Pradesh high court. In June 2021, Hariom Sahu, 50, a social worker from Bhind filed a petition before the Gwalior bench against the illegal functioning of 63 nursing colleges in the Gwalior and Chambal areas of the state. On August 18, 2021, a bench of justice Rohit Arya and justice Milind Ramesh Phadke appointed a six-member commission to carry out surprise inspections of these respective colleges. But the All India Private Nursing Institute Association filed a special leave petition on October 25, 2021 before the Supreme Court, submitting that the commission appointed by the high court does not have the technical background or expertise in the subjects to inspect the colleges. On December 10, 2021, a bench of justice UU Lalit and justice S Ravindra Bhat set aside the high court’s order and directed it to consider the matter afresh. They said: “Without going into the question whether the circumstances called for any urgent and extraordinary order, we deem it appropriate to set aside the directions quoted hereinabove and request the high court to consider the matter afresh and appoint such commission which will be in conformity with the Madhya Pradesh Nursing Sikshan Sansthan Manyata Niyam 2018.”
On March 4, under fresh directions from the high court, the Madhya Pradesh Medical Education Department formed a 10-member committee of doctors and nursing staff to conduct inspections. The order said, “The inspection of nursing institutions operating in the above districts (Gwalior and Chambal divisions) is to be started from 07.03.2022. For inspection of Nursing College by Government Medical Colleges, one associate/assistant professor and one senior nursing official are included in each inspection team which will have two members. The teams constituted as above will inspect the nursing colleges and submit the inspection report to Nurses Registration Council, Bhopal and medical education department.”
COLLEGES OF FRAUD
Between March 17 and April 27, the 10-member committee inspected 200 colleges across the Gwalior and Chambal divisions of the state and submitted a report to the high court. Based on these, the registration of 70 colleges in this region have been cancelled in the past month, medical education department minister Vishwas Sarang told HT.
Except, one of the colleges that the committee cleared after an inspection on April 24 was the DD Swami College of Nursing in Sunderpura College. The inspection report, a copy of which HT has seen, said there was “less OPD in hospital on inspection day, academic building lab library according to guidelines performance indicator was good”.
Most Sunderpura residents do not seem to know about the college. HT’s reporter is directed to it by a man grazing cattle, Ranveer Singh Baghel, who recognizes the building from a photo of the college that was uploaded on the Internet. He points this reporter in the direction of the dirt track: “This building is located in the middle of the fields but has no approach road. Because of the rains, the fields themselves are full of mud. We were told that a boarding school was going to start here.”
Inside the building where the 10-member committee found an OPD (“less” but still there) and everything else as mandated, 62-year-old Sultan, who has been the sole caretaker of the deserted building for the past five years, shares brochures that say “Little Flower’s School of Modern Education”. “The maalik (owner) wants to develop it as a school and nursing college together,” he adds, when asked to specify whether it is a school or a nursing college.
The owner in question is Parsuram Upadhyaya, who is disappointed that the reporter did not reach out to him first: “You should go with us for an inspection. You would have found everything all right.”
In Gwalior, 30 km away, is the village of Baraua. Records of the Nursing Registration Council show the village is a veritable nursery of nursing colleges, with as many as nine in a five kilometre radius. But on July 27 and 28, only two colleges, VIPS College of Nursing and the Awadh Nursing College are functioning with about 70-80 students each. Five other college buildings are locked and deserted, one of them without an identifying board. Three of these colleges, GR College, KBM College of Education and the CRM Institute share the same registered address and the same college building.
One of the locked, deserted buildings has a board proclaiming the “Diksha Professional Academy”. The lone gatekeeper, who identifies himself as Murari says, “There are 2-3 teachers but they come occasionally. Today is Amavasya (no moon day) so they have not come. Students don’t come to the college.”
The college is owned by Arvind Singh, who blames students. “What to do if students are not ready to come to college? Everybody knows that teachers and college administration have been booked many times for forcing students to study so we cannot take the risk.”
Singh adds that his college has been inspected “25 times” over the past decade, and no problems have been found. “They cancelled the registration of other colleges as they didn’t find teachers, students, papers, patients and other things. How is it the fault of colleges if teachers are on leave or students don’t want to attend college, and if people are healthy and don’t want to be admitted to hospitals,” Singh asks.
nother deserted building has a board which says MPS College. A caretaker who identifies himself as Ramsaran Kushwaha says two nursing colleges and an ITI College are based in the building. “From this building two colleges, Aditya School of Nursing and MPS Nursing College are run, but they are closed because no students and teachers come,” Kushwaha says. MPS Nursing College is one of the 70 colleges that have been derecognized in the past month. Aditya School of Nursing has not been
The Medical Education Board inspection committee report says two members inspected the Aditya School of Nursing on April 12, and found the college possessed adequate facilities such as a building, laboratory, library and equipment for teaching. But the empty college building has no identifying board, and is locked from the outside.
The registered owner of the Aditya School of Nursing and MPS College, Jitendra Singh Bhadoriya says “Kya kare (what to do)?” in response to HT’s questions and disconnects the phone.
HOW THESE COLLEGES FLOURISH
Experts say these nursing colleges provide degrees, and allow students to sit for examinations without ever having to attend class, for a fee that ranges from ₹1.8 lakhs to ₹2.4 lakhs.
Vyapam-scam whistleblower Ashish Chaturvedi said, “There is a big nexus of these nursing colleges. They have agents across the nation to target students who only want a degree. Many colleges are running these colleges on paper by making a one-time investment on the building.”
On July 28, this reporter spoke to Brijesh Singh, manager of the MPS and Aditya School of Nursing in Gwalior on the process of admission. Singh wants to know if the student wants “regular” or “irregular” admission. “I am asking this because most students such as those from Bihar, want to stay in their home towns and enrol for a degree here.”
Explaining the process for an “irregular admission”, Singh adds: “We need all the documents of the student and fees of ₹60,000 for a year. The student needs to come only to take the exam. When he comes for the examination, we have arrangements with hotels nearby and they charge ₹300 per day for three persons sharing a room.
WHAT THE COMMITTEE SAYS
Members of the inspection committee of the Medical Education Board, however, say their reports are based on what they found on the day of the inspection. Ratlam Government medical college, professor and resident doctor Vikram Mujalde, who inspected the Aditya School of Nursing in Gwalior on April 12, says: “We found teachers, students and required infrastructure and submitted the report accordingly with photos. I don’t remember about the exact college.”
Another member of the committee, Rewa Medical College director Dr Anshuman Sharma adds: “We inspected colleges as per the direction of Madhya Pradesh and submitted a report as per our findings. We all know how things happen in India so I don’t want to comment on that.”
Jiten Shukla, Director of medical education department and president of Nursing Council that awards recognition to nursing colleges in Madhya Pradesh says: “At least 200 colleges have lost recognition in the last academic year. We are definitely identifying the loopholes in the rules of recognition so that it will be essential for colleges to run regular classes. We will hold a surprise inspection and make the government officers responsible in case of any lapses.”
Medical education minister Vishwas Sarang adds: “This year, we have cancelled the registration of at least 200 colleges including 70 in Gwalior and Chambal division. We are improving the registration rules to make them more strict. If we find any complaints, we will hold another inspection.”
(with inputs from Monika Pandey and Shiv Pratap Singh from Morena)
