No MBBS fee hike in Karnataka for 2024-25 academic year

Karnataka- In a relief to medical students, the Karnataka government has decided not to increase the fees for MBBS course for the academic year 2024-25. With this, the MBBS course fee will continue to be ₹50,000 per year in government medical colleges and ₹1,28,746 per year for government quota seats in private medical colleges for the academic year 2024-25.

As per the Hindu report, the Karnataka government had not increased the fees for medical courses from 2021-22. However, in 2018-19 the government had allowed private medical and dental college managements to increase fees by 26% and further allowed a 15% increase each year in 2019-20 and 2020-21.

Apart from this, there was also a one-time fee hike of 199% for government quota seats in government medical colleges in 2018-19. On this, according to sources, there have also been discussions at the government level about increasing the seat fees of government quota in government medical colleges, but no decision has been taken yet.

The fee hike issue started after negotiations between private medical and dental college managements and the government failed over a fee hike for medical courses. Private medical and dental college managements were demanding a 10 to 15% fee hike. On this, the government had agreed to increase the fees by 10 per cent, but private medical colleges still insisted the Government to increase the fees by 15 to 20 per cent. However, private medical and dental college managements belonging to minority communities agreed to a fee hike of 10% and the remaining colleges did not increase the fees.

Meanwhile, private medical and dental college managements have again requested the government to increase fees by 10 to 20 per cent this year. In this regard, Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil recently held a meeting with the representatives of private medical and dental college management regarding fixing the fees for medical and dental courses.

On this, M.R. Jayaram, honorary secretary of the Karnataka Private Medical and Dental Colleges Association, told the Hindu, “Private medical and dental colleges are suffering from a financial crunch. The fee for medical courses has not been increased for the last three years. Although there is an opportunity to increase the fee by 10% every year, it has not been done. So, we have requested the government to increase the fee. The Minister of Medical Education has promised that an appropriate decision will be taken in the Cabinet meeting regarding the fee hike”.

Along with this, speaking to the TH, B.L. Sujatha Rathod, Director of the Directorate of Medical Education also informed Hindu, “Private medical and dental college managements were demanding to increase the fee based on inflation index and the cost of expenditure. But, the government did not agree. So, the last year’s fee will be continued this academic year. The consensual agreement is expected to be signed soon between the State government and private medical and dental college management”.