Students aspiring for medical and dental courses in private colleges across the State will have to cough up more for fees from this academic year.
Medical Education Minister S.A. Ramdas, on Friday, announced a hike of 10 per cent in fees for MBBS and BDS courses for seats that come under the government quota in private colleges. For postgraduate (PG) seats too, there is a fee hike of 10 per cent in government quota seats in private colleges and private seats in private colleges. This hike will not be applicable for government colleges. For instance, students who get seats through COMED-K quota will be paying Rs. 5.01 lakh for Clinical, while those under the government quota (allotted seats through the PGCET) will pay a fee of Rs. 3.35 lakh for the Government quota seats. For MBBS, under the COMED-K quota, students will have to pay Rs. 3.57 lakh, while those admitted through CET will pay Rs. 38,500.
“This hike had to be done for two reasons: 40 per cent increase in teachers' salaries due to implementation of the new salary structure, and the modified MCI rules which prescribe an increase nurse to patient ratio. This has pushed up the establishment costs for teaching hospitals. So we agreed to a minimal fee hike. However, we did not increase the fees for government colleges,” Mr. Ramdas told The Hindu.
Admission process
The other major change that students will see this year is the way admissions are conducted for postgraduate students.
To tackle the menace of seat blocking, admissions will be made at the counselling centre (counselling begins on Saturday at RGUHS), instead of the respective colleges.
Officials or admission officers of all colleges will now have to be present at the counselling centre.
Soon after counselling, students will be admitted to the colleges and course of their choice.
