Deemed varsities, private medical colleges go for a hefty fee hike

Even as medical aspirants are informed about the course fee that has been announced in the brochures of the medical and dental colleges run by deemed universities and private unaided ones, parents say students joining the course this year will pay double the amount compared to the batch passing out this year.

For instance, a student passing out of the Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University’s medical college had paid Rs 6-7 lakh as course fee some five years ago. This year, a medical college aspirant will have to cough up Rs 11. 25 lakh.

The tuition fee at D Y Patil Deemed University’s medical college was Rs 7.5 lakh last year. This year, it has shot up to Rs 16 .5 lakh this year with a rider that the annual fee will be increased by three per cent each year.

Parents said this is just the tuition fee which does not include other costs that will only increase the total
amount to be paid.

Elsewhere too, according to parents from Pune who have applied for their wards to various private medical colleges, tution fees have shot up.

For instance, at Sri Ramachandra University in Chennai, the annual tuition fee has nearly tripled from Rs 6.5 lakh in 2011 to Rs 18 lakh this year. Parents also complain that call letters for counselling students at colleges run by deemed varsities are scheduled on September 7 and 8. “We have applied to several colleges and now dates are clashing. We cannot be physically present at so many places and will now select either one or two to be physically present,” they said.

When contacted, Vivek Saoji, dean at Bharati Vidyapeeth Deemed University’s medical college, said there had been an
increase in the fees in the last five years, but the hike was within permissible limits. “There is a fee fixation committee governed by the University Grants Commission which authorises the fee structure. It is not arbitrarily done. Moreover, apart from a teaching institution, there is an attached hospital and the expenses are met from hiking students’ fees,” he said.

As per a Supreme Court order, a committee also reviews tuition fees charged by private unaided colleges. In
Maharashtra, there are eight deemed universities running 10 medical and dental colleges and 17 private unaided
medical colleges.

Admissions on hold at private unaided medical colleges

While parents agreed that NEET was a welcome step, their complain is that its implementation has not been a smooth one. For instance, even though government medical colleges commenced classes for the medical and dental courses a month ago, admissions are on hold to unaided private medical colleges in the state following a Bombay High Court order on September 3, which withheld publishing the selection list of MBBS and BDS courses based on the NEET scores for unaided private colleges.

The order came on a petition filed by the Mahatma Gandhi Vidya Mandir, a trust which runs a dental college in Nashik and which had challenged the admission clause which compels only state students to apply to the 85% seats in private institutes.

Across the country, there are 53,330 and 10,000 seats in medical and dental courses respectively. As many as 8.02 lakh aspirants had appeared for the NEET 2015 out of which 4.09 lakh qualified.

In Maharashtra, there are 2,800 medical seats at government medical colleges and another 1,700 in private medical colleges.

Dr Pravin Shingare, director of Directorate of Medical Education and Research, said they were awaiting the Bombay HC verdict on the selection list. “We are ready to display the selection list, but now will have to wait for the order scheduled for September 7,” he said.

An earlier version of the report inadvertently mentioned that Kasturba Medical College at Manipal charges nothing less than Rs 40 lakh annually for an MBBS course. It is the total fee. The error is regretted.