The late acupuncture practitioner Shahzad Beramji (pictured) was posthumously awarded the first registration certificate of the Maharashtra Council of Acupuncture by Dr Pravin Shingare, the Council’s ex-director at an event on August 26, 2022. Shahzad "was the pioneer in convincing me to get acupuncture recognized in Maharashtra for the benefit of thousands of acupuncture practitioners and also establish colleges to help the people benefit through qualified practitioners," stated his father and acupuncture practitioner Dr Rumi. Shahzad passed away in 2020.
It was largely due to Rumi’s efforts that Maharashtra became the second state after West Bengal, in December 2015, to have passed a bill paving the way for state recognition (see "Acupuncture recognition," Events and Personalities, Parsiana, March 7, 2016). "About 4,000 acupuncture practitioners are registered with the Council and another 1,000 are awaiting registration after they fulfill the requirements of the Council," Rumi informed Parsiana on August 29. "The registrations with the Council were scrutinized in detail…The paperwork submitted by the practitioners took time to collate and examine… Then the pandemic was upon us, so it all took time," he said. Now the next major step will be to set up colleges, he stated. ...