Doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) have started an online petition seeking the intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to regulate the cost of medical education in private medical colleges across India.
‘Mental breakdown’
Harjit Singh Bhatti at AIIMS who started the petition said, “The greed of private medical colleges to earn maximum from every medical student puts traumatic pressure on students which results in mental breakdown.”
Dr. Bhatti said that the suicide of Smriti Laharpure of Index Medical College, Indore, is one of the incidents which shook India to its core and drew the attention of policymakers to private medical colleges, which are turning into a death trap for students.
“I request all medical students, doctors and families of MBBS aspirants to sign this petition to secure your as well as your children’s future. We request the government to equalise fees of private medical colleges with government medical colleges for at least 85% of overall seats. This will restore people’s faith in the government and medical education as medical education is not an industry for making profits, but to secure the health of the citizens.”
The petition also said that many students take education loans to fulfil their dreams, but unregulated private medical colleges pressurise students to pay more than what is mentioned on the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) website.
Apart from this, students are also forced to pay high hostel fees as fine for minute penalties.
CBSE data states that in 2018, around 13.5 lakh MBBS aspirants had taken the NEET for around 65,000 seats. This clearly shows the level of competition for aspiring doctors. The number of MBBS seats is only 5% of the number of aspirants. After clearing the NEET hurdle, aspirants come to know that around 60% of seats are in private medical colleges.
Fees of private medical colleges on the MCC website range from ₹8 lakh to ₹40 lakh per annum for government-regulated seats and up to ₹1 crore per annum for management quota seats. As most aspirants belong to middle class or lower middle class families, such high fees pose a major setback for their ambitions.
