NMC Expert Committee survey reveals annual median fee in private medical colleges, deemed universities
New Delhi: The median for course fees at the private medical colleges is around R 11.5 lakh per year, while the amount is a whooping Rs 21 lakh at the deemed universities, an expert group under the National Medical Commission (NMC) has recently revealed.
Conducting a survey, the expert group operative under the Apex medical education regulatory body NMC has further pointed out that among the approximate 96,000 MBBS seats in India, almost half of them are in the private medical colleges and deemed universities.
Minister of State for Education, Dr. Subhas Sarkar shared this survey statistics with the Parliament in a written reply. The data revealed that the medical fee, which is the middle number in an ascending or descending list of numbers, for the management quota seats are same as the normal seats in private colleges and deemed universities.
However, for the NRI quota seats (reserved for NRIs, Overseas Citizens of India, Persons of Indian Origin and those with an NRI sponsor living outside India, the median fees was more than double than the fees for the normal seats. In this case, the students need to pay Rs 24 lakhs a year in private medical colleges.
Similarly, the median fees for NRI quota seats at the deemed universities is 50 percent more than the normal seats. For these seats, the students need to pay Rs 31 lakh per year.
As per the latest media report by Indian Express, the data further revealed that the seats earmarked by the State in the private medical colleges cost around one-sixth of the normal fees in the private medical colleges and around one-tenth of the normal fees at deemed universities.
While commenting on this, the former head of Maharashtra's Department of Medical Education and Research, Dr. Pravin Shingare told the daily, "The fee structure differs for different categories of seats in different states – there was a drastic difference in fee structures across the country. This made it impossible for the government to settle on a baseline fee for MBBS, hence the exercise to determine the median fee was undertaken by the expert committee."
The Minister of State for Education further informed the Parliament that while the expert group can provide guidance to 27 fee regulatory committees and 70 committees from the deemed universities regarding the fees, it shall now become the baseline for deciding the fee for the private medical colleges in the country.
In this regard, the Government further informed that to make medical education more accessible and to ensure that Indian students do not need to move abroad to pursue medical education, the government has increased the number of medical seats. Further, the Government has reduced the cost of education in the private medical colleges.
Medical Dialogues had earlier reported that issuing an Office Memorandum back in February 2022, NMC had clarified that the fees of 50 percent seats in the private medical colleges would be at par with the government medical colleges of that particular State/UT.
"After extensive consultations, it has been decided that the fee of the 50 per cent seats in the private medical colleges and deemed universities should be at par with the fee in the government medical colleges of that particular State and UT. The benefit of this fee structure would be first made available to those candidates who have availed government quota seats, but are limited to the extent of 50 per cent of the total sanctioned strength of the respective medical college/deemed university," NMC had mentioned in the notification.
However, private medical institutes were unhappy with the NMC order and the matter had reached several High Courts and finally the Supreme Court. Referring to this, Dr. Shingare added, "As of now, the existing Supreme Court judgements say that the deemed universities have a right to fix the fees of their seats in consultation with their fee regulatory committee, headed by a retired judge. Although the current matter is pending in courts, the NMC cannot unilaterally decide to fix the fees for all 100% seats. For that, the government will have to go to Parliament."
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