50% seats of private medical colleges will now have same fees as govt institutions | Details

The National Medical Commission (NMC) on Thursday notified that at least 50% seats of private colleges will have the same fees as that of government medical colleges in any state or Union territory.  The order comes as a relief for students from economically backward sections as college fees of private medical institutions is always considered too high. It will also help students who couldn’t get into medical colleges to pursure MBBD even after securing better scores in the eligibility tests.

“After several consultations it has been decided that the fee of the 50% seats in the private medical college and deemed universities should be at par with the fee in the government medical college of that particular state or UT”, read the notification issued by the NMC.

Here are the detailed guidelines issued by the National Medical Commission:

• Respective states will fix college fees for government medical colleges which will then have to be complied by private colleges too for 50% of their seats.
• Students who have cleared eligibility tests based on merit will will be the first to receive this benefit.
• Some colleges have a merit quota below 50 per cent. In that case, such colleges shall select the eligible students only by considering their scores in the eligibility tests.
• No capitation fee can be charged for the admission and profit must not be the basis for determining the fees.

Earlier, private medical colleges had the autonomy to decide the fees of each seat. This drew a lot of flak and the National Medical Council was heavily criticized. The National Medical Commission was then set up to deal with disparity in fees of private and government medical colleges.

The guidelines of the commission were prepared by considering the 1800 responses received for the directions of the expert committee constituted in November 2019.