By Jehangir Ali
Srinagar: Even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Hindu right-wing groups have been claiming that the the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence was operating without any funding from the country’s only Muslim-majority government, documents show that the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi (SMVD) University which runs the institute continued to receive official financial support even when the erstwhile state was bifurcated and downgraded into two Union Territories.
The university got Rs 10 lakh ‘grants in aid’ from the J&K government in 2017-18. The grants increased significantly from Rs 50 lakh in 2018-19 to Rs 5 crore in 2019-20 when J&K’s special status was struck down by the BJP-led Union government.
In the post 2019 period, J&K’s budgets were approved by the parliament until last year when the first elected government of the Union Territory of J&K led by Omar Abdullah was sworn into office.
From Rs 19.70 crore in 2020-21, budget documents show that the J&K government grants to the Vaishno Devi University consistently increased from Rs 21 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 23 crore in 2022-23, Rs 24 crore in 2023-24 and Rs 24 crore in 2024-25.
For the present financial year, the J&K government has approved Rs 28 crore ‘grants in aid’ for the university, budget documents show.
The medical institute in Reasi district of Jammu is at the centre of a raging storm in J&K after the BJP backed the call of some Sangh Parivar affiliates to reserve the MBBS quota of 50 seats at the institute for Hindus only.
The right-wing groups have claimed that the institute runs with the donations of Hindu devotees, however, official documents show that it is managed by the multi-disciplinary SMVD University which received Rs 121.30 crore ‘grants-in-aid’ from J&K government since 2017-18.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
