TN Private Medical Colleges Demand MBBS Fee Hike, HC Issues Notice
Chennai: Seeking an increase in the MBBS course fees for the 2022-2025 academic years, the private medical colleges in Tamil Nadu have filed a plea before the Madras High Court bench.
While considering the plea by TN Self-Financing Medical Colleges Association, the HC bench of Justices D Krishnakumar and PB Balaji has issued notice to the State Government and the Committee for Fixation of Fee for the private medical colleges. The association prayed that an order passed in this regard by the fee panel be revoked, TNIE has reported.
The HC Division bench asked the authorities to respond to the plea and file their counter-affidavits. The matter has been listed for further hearing after two weeks.
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As per the latest media report by The New Indian Express, filing the plea, the association pointed out that the committee headed by Justice NV Balasubramanian fixed the MBBS fee for 2017-2018, 2018-2019, 2019-2020 as Rs 3.9 lakh for the government quota, Rs 12.5 lakh for management quota and Rs 23.5 lakh for NRI quota by its order date June 6, 2017.
Taking the issue of the pandemic into account, the fee panel chaired by Justice K Venkataraman maintained the fee structure for 2020-2021. The association had sought the committee to revise the annual fee for UG and PG medical courses for 2021-2022 considering the increase in the expenditure including salaries, delayed payment of fees and other difficulties in running the institutes.
The association pointed out that the fee panel fixed separate fee structures for government, management, NRI and NRI lapsed quota for 2022-2023 and it will remain effective for three years, through the proceedings dated October 15, 2022. However, for the two state university private medical colleges, the fee fixed by the committee is higher than that of the self-financing medical colleges.
In the plea, the association pointed out that for the government quota seats in private medical colleges Rs 4.35 lakh average fee has been fixed while for the same quota for the state university private colleges the fee is Rs 5.4 lakh. It alleged that there were disparities in other quotas as well.
Therefore, through its plea before the HC bench, the association urged the Court to issue directions for quashing the committee's proceedings passed in 2022 and the consequential proceedings dated September 19, 2024. It prayed before the court to direct the fee panel to fix fees afresh and allow self-financing medical colleges to collect fees on a par with the state university private colleges.
