BN. Muni Narayanappa is preparing to launch a clean-up drive in Bangalore. Starting from 2008-09, Narayanappa, registrar, Karnataka Nursing Council (KNC), will ensure that all under-equipped nursing schools in the city down their shutters.

In 2003, the Karnataka government began to liberally grant permission to set up nursing schools in the state. “Ever since, running nursing colleges and schools have become big business. Anybody with any space started one,” says Narayanappa.

Till 2003, Karnataka had 80 nursing colleges and 180 nursing schools across the state. The numbers have almost quadrupled in the last four years. At last count, KNC had 670 nursing schools registered with it. And 370 nursing colleges are registered with the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Bangalore. “Bangalore alone has 301,” says Narayanappa.

As quantity soared, quality took a backseat. “Most don’t have the required infrastructure or teaching staff,” says Narayanappa. Now, KNC is going to take action. “While registering a nursing school, we will enforce stringent quality norms and the permissible student intake will be slashed to almost half,” he says.

Some nursing schools in the city are welcoming the move. Says Tracy P.M., principal, Garden City College of Nursing, Bangalore, “It’s important to check the rampant growth of nursing colleges in the city. The Karnataka government doled out licences liberally, without checking on the minimal infrastructure and teaching staff. Also, finding quality faculty has become a major issue.” An Indian Nursing Council regulation stipulates that nursing colleges maintain a 1:10 teacher-student ratio which is often not the case.

Vasanthi Nair will vouch for that. She came to Bangalore last year to do a BSc nursing course. A sum of Rs 1 lakh would have ensured her admission in any one of the nursing colleges. But soon she discovered that many colleges didn’t have proper classrooms or labs. She opted to drop a year, study for the nursing entrance exam and then seek admission to a top-end college.

The main reason for this boom in the nursing education sector is the growing demand for qualified Indian nurses in western nations. “There is a requirement of 20 lakh nurses in the US, the UK, Australia and West Asia,” says Tracy. “Besides, Indians are known to be affectionate, caring people and these are tailor-made qualities for nurses,” adds R. Prabhavati, principal, Hospital for Orthopaedics, Sports Medicine, Arthritis, Accident and Trauma College of Nursing (HOSMAT), Bangalore.

At the same time, Bangalore’s health care industry is also witnessing a boom. With the Karnataka government promoting Bangalore as a health tourism centre, overseas patients are flying into the city looking for low-cost health care. Nine hi-tech hospitals will soon be launched in the city. Heart institute Narayana Hrudalaya is building a health city.

To cater to a skewed demand-supply ratio, city-based hospitals such as Narayana Hrudalaya and HOSMAT have started nursing colleges. The former follows a stringent selection procedure. Only students with over 50 per cent marks in Plus Two can apply. “They have to take a written test and face two panel interviews,” says principal T.N. Raghunath. So far, so good.