Tuition, capitation fees rise all-time record.
As the Supreme Court of India has made it mandatory for private medical colleges to admit students to MBBS course solely on the basis of their National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET), the institutions have started increasing fees for the course to become a doctor.
In a recent development, private medical colleges in Tamil Nadu have almost doubled its fees for MBBS course. According to a report in The Times of India, the cost of studying at a private medical college or a deemed university may go up to Rs. 2 crores (around $300,000).
On an average, a student will have to pay around Rs. 1.85 crore; up to Rs. 1 crore as tuition fee and Rs. 85 lakh as capitation fee for the five and a half year course.
The private medical institutions started hiking their MBBS fees after the CBSE released the NEET results on August 17.
On the other hand, government colleges charge a fee of Rs. 4000 per semester and a student have to pay Rs. 10,000 a year.
Earlier, private medical colleges had the freedom of choosing students for management seats for which they could charge huge amounts of tuition fees and capitation fees.
Though there were entrance tests to select the students, merit was not considered for selecting students for management seats and NRI seats. As a result of this, even those students who were not on the merit list could have secured an admission to an MBBS course by paying the fees demanded by the private institutions.
With the Supreme Court order in effect, the colleges have to take into account the merit of the students while admitting them. But, if the fees are being increased substantially, it becomes unaffordable to many eligible students.
“I argued it should be based on merit, but the college administration says it wasn’t specified in the SC order,” a parent was quoted as saying by The Times of India.
Parents and students allege that the private institutions have a business mind in running the medical colleges and are making huge money by charging high amount of fees.
On an average, the fee for an MBBS seat in a private medical college is around Rupees 40 lakh across the country. In some states like Kerala, the state government has made an agreement with private medical colleges regarding the fees charged for MBBS seats.
A fee of Rupees 10 lakh had been fixed for 85 per cent seats in member colleges of the Kerala Private Medical College Management Association. For the 15 per cent NRI seats, the fee would range from Rs.15 lakh to Rs.20 lakh depending on the individual college.
Meanwhile, TR Pachamuthu, the chancellor of SRM University in Tamil Nadu was arrested by the Chennai Crime Branch after more than 100 students filed complaints about the capitation fees the institution had charged for MBBS seats.
The case was registered after Madhan, who was a Tamil film producer and a close aid of Pachamuthu went missing three months back. It was alleged that he had collected crores of rupees from medical seat aspirants.
Madhan’s family alleged that he had paid all the money collected to the chancellor before he went missing. In 2013, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had conducted raids in SRM Group of institutions and Madhan’s Vendhar movies, following complaints of alleged capitation fees payment.