A much-hyped, nearly $400-million effort to blend the disciplines of medicine and engineering at one of India’s most prestigious engineering schools in collaboration with the University of California at San Diego is now in jeopardy because of bureaucratic wrangling between India’s health and education ministries, reports The Hindustan Times.

The elite Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur signed a financial and academic partnership agreement with the American university in August 2009 to set up a hospital and medical college that many expected would begin this year. India’s health ministry says the education ministry, in its legal amendments aimed at allowing any of the 15 Indian Institutes of Technology to start medical programs, didn’t take into account its view that the Medical Council of India has to approve such colleges.

“Any significant delay in finalizing the amendments could hurt the chances of them being in place by the coming academic year,” an unnamed government source told the newspaper, adding, “It will be sad if students suffer because of a turf war.”