The government of Telangana on Friday turned down a plea by the managements of private medical colleges to implement common fee structure for the Post Graduate medical courses from this year.
A delegation of Private Medical Colleges Management Association called on the Telangana Chief Secretary Rajiv Sharma to urge the government to introduce uniform fee structure for the year 2014-15 for PG medical admissions. They argued that as the Medical Council of India had directed the colleges to complete the admission procedure by July 10, the government should issue relevant orders.
The Chief Secretary and the Principal Secretary Health, S.K. Joshi, reportedly told them that the time was too little and it was not possible to implement the uniform fee structure. The present fee structure would continue for this year, the Chief Secretary remarked. With regard to the UG admissions, the government promised to get back to the association as the counselling would be taken up in September.
The government had categorised the admissions into private colleges into A, B and C categories.
While the A and B category with 60 per cent of the seats fall under the convener quota, C category quota is meant for the managements. The government had prescribed Rs. 60,000 for A category seats and Rs. 2.40 lakh for the B category seats. In all, there are 1,750 UG and 611 PG seats in private medical colleges across Telangana.
The managements wanted the government to implement the fee proposed by the Admission Fee Regulatory Committee (AFRC).
It is understood that the AFRC has proposed uniform fee structure ranging from Rs. 3.10 lakh to Rs. 3.70 lakh for the PG and UG courses.
The proposals were submitted to the Governor when the united Andhra Pradesh was under President’s rule, but no decision was taken as the issue was left to the new governments of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh to decide.
Malkajgiri MP C. Malla Reddy, who is the chairman of CMR Group of Institutions along with Akbaruddin Owaisi (Owaisi Medical College), Krishna Reddy (SVS Medical College) and Sashidhar (Kamineni Medical College), said it was difficult for the managements to run the institutions with meagre fees. They wanted the government to implement the proposals of the AFRC.
Meanwhile, Andhra Pradesh Medical and Health Minister Kamineni Srinivasa Rao on Friday said that old fee structure would continue for post graduate medical courses.
In a chat with reporters in the Assembly lobbies, he said the fee structure for MBBS course would be decided in the first week of July.
