Talks held here on Monday between the government and representatives of private self-financing medical colleges stumbled on the question of uniform fee for the majority of seats even as the managements expressed their readiness to go in for reduced fee for 20 per cent of government seats.
Subsequently, it was decided that there would be another round of talks in the presence of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The date of the talks has not yet been fixed.
Early on Monday morning, the Kerala Private Medical College Management Association held a meeting here at which it was decided to ask for a unified fee structure for all seats in medical colleges.
Later, during talks with the government, Health Minister Shylaja expressed the government’s opposition to such a fee structure. The association held a second meeting at which it was decided that the managements would agree to a 50:50 seat split.
It was also agreed that the managements would offer to take in students to 20 per cent of the government seats at Rs.25,000. For the rest of the seats — except for the NRI seats — it is understood that the association proposed a uniform fee of Rs.12.5 lakh. Though it did not figure in the talks, the fee for the NRI seats was fixed by the association at Rs.20 lakh.
“The Health Minister told us that the uniform fee for 65 per cent seats, which we proposed, was also not acceptable to the government. The government said okay to our proposal to take in 20 per cent students at Rs.25,000. However, she wanted us to keep the fee for the rest of the seats unchanged at last year’s fee of Rs.9.5 lakh. This was not acceptable to us. Anyhow there is a marginal increase of 10 per cent that is allowed every year on the fee. We did not see why we should agree to keep the fee unchanged. It was at this point that it was decided to meet again and discuss the whole issue in the presence of the Chief Minister,” association president P. Krishnadas told The Hindu .
Association secretary Anilkumar Vallil said here that the government had promised to get back in a couple of days with a date for the meeting with the Chief Minister.
