A survey conducted by the National Medical Commission revealed that the median annual fee of a deemed university is around Rs 21 lakh, which is almost double that of the private medical colleges’ average annual fee of around Rs 11.5 lakh.
Around 96,000 seats for the 2023 academic year are available in the country’s medical colleges. Half of these are in the private sector, the Indian Express reported.
In response to a written query, Dr Subhas Sarkar, the Minister for Education, informed Parliament that the median fee that the government provides for the management quota seats in private medical colleges is the same as that of the regular seats. However, for seats reserved for non-resident Indians, the fee is more than double that of the normal ones, at Rs 24 lakhs a year in private medical colleges.
For seats reserved for non-resident Indians, the fee at deemed universities is more than 50 per cent higher than that of the normal ones.
According to the reply, the cost of government quota seats in private colleges is around one-sixth of the normal fees in these institutions and one-tenth of the normal charges at deemed universities.
According to Dr Pravin Shingare, a former head of the department of medical education in Maharashtra, the fee structure for various categories of seats across the country had a drastic effect on the government’s ability to set a baseline for the next academic year. This led to the formation of an expert committee that looked into the median fee.
The committee, which is composed of experts from various fields, can help the regulatory authorities set uniform fee structures for different categories of seats in the country. There are over 20 fee regulatory committees in each state and 70 committees in deemed universities.
In April, the National Medical Commission issued guidelines that stated that the fee for half of the seats in private medical colleges and deemed universities should be brought to the same level as that of government institutions. The guidelines also provided a set of principles that would be used to calculate the fees for other seats. However, the implementation of the new fee structure is yet to be decided.
According to Dr. Shingare, the Supreme Court has already ruled that deemed universities can fix the fees after consulting the fee regulatory committee, which is headed by a retired judge. However, the matter is still before the courts and the National Medical Council cannot fix the fees for all the seats.