6 patients killed in Rajasthan hospital fire, kin allege staff ignored warnings; PM condoles deaths
Jaipur (PTI): Six critical patients were killed in a blaze at the trauma centre of the state-run Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Hospital in Jaipur late Sunday, officials said.
Trauma centre in-charge Dr Anurag Dhakad said 11 patients were being treated in the Neuro ICU when the fire erupted in the storage area, suspected to have been caused by a short circuit.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed grief over the tragedy, saying in a post in Hindi on X, "The loss of lives due to a fire tragedy at a hospital in Jaipur, Rajasthan, is deeply saddening. Condolences to those who have lost their loved ones. May the injured recover soon."
According to officials, the deceased were identified as Pintu from Sikar, Dilip and Bahadur from Jaipur, Shrinath, Rukmini, Khurma -- all from Bharatpur.
"Six of them, two women and four men, died in the incident," Dhakad said. "Fourteen other patients were admitted in a different ICU, and all were successfully evacuated to safer locations," he added.
The fire caused chaos in the building as thick smoke spread rapidly, triggering panic among patients and their families. Several documents, ICU equipment, and medical supplies were destroyed in the fire.
Hospital staff and attendants evacuated patients, with some wheeling beds outside the building. Firefighters brought the fire under control in around two hours.
Vikas, a ward boy who was at the scene, told PTI that he and other staff members rescued as many people as they could before the fire worsened.
"We were inside the operating theatre when we heard about the fire, so we immediately rushed to rescue the people inside the centre. We managed to save at least three to four patients. However, as the flames intensified, we could no longer go into the building. We did our best to rescue as many as we could," he said.
He added that the police arrived later, but they could not enter the building immediately due to the heavy smoke.
When the fire team arrived, the entire ward was engulfed in smoke. The firefighters had to break a window to start extinguishing the fire.
Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Jogaram Patel and Minister of State for Home Jawahar Singh Bedham visited the trauma centre to take stock of the situation.
When Patel and Bedham initially arrived, relatives of some patients expressed anguish, alleging that the staff had ignored early warning and fled during the fire. They also claimed that the hospital staff could not provide updates on the patients' condition.
"We noticed smoke and immediately informed the staff, but they did not pay any heed. When the fire broke out, they were the first to run. Now, we cannot get any information about our patients. We want to know their condition, but no one is telling us," one of the attendants said.
Later, the chief minister also spoke to doctors and patients.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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