The private medical colleges have urged the government not to disturb the present admission system as they have to complete the process before July 31 as per the Supreme Court guidelines, and if any changes have to be brought in they should be announced before April only.
The A.P. Private Medical Colleges and Dental Colleges Association Treasurer, G. Bhasker Rao, told a press conference that management quota seats were filled in adherence to the G.O. Nos 136 and 181 that had clear norms on the admission procedures. The selection was approved by the NTR University of Health Sciences and later by the MCI. “There has been no controversy all these years,” he said.
Dr. Rao argued that as per the Supreme Court judgment there could not be differential fee structure in the course and a student could not cross subsidise fees for another student.
However, as a matter of healthy tradition, medical college managements had agreed to the government’s proposal to have different fee structure. He reminded that expenditure incurred on each student in a medical college was around Rs. 10 lakh per annum and colleges didn’t receive any financial assistance from the government.
About 2,000 seats are under the management quota in 24 private medical colleges in the State. As per the present policy, 50 per cent seats (A category) and 10 per cent seats (B category) are filled by the government based on EAMCET rank for a fee of Rs. 60,000 and Rs 2.4 lakh per annum respectively. Managements can fill the remaining 40 per cent seats (C category) with a fee of Rs. 5.5 lakh per annum.
MBBS seats
The demand for MBBS seats is likely to increase this year with over 90,000 students qualifying in the EAMCET medical stream. However, only 5,500 seats are available in 40 medical colleges and of these 2,050 are in 14 government medical colleges.
The remaining 3,450 seats are in 26 private medical colleges, and among these 2,070 seats are filled on EAMCET merit through online counselling. Managements have about 1,380 seats under “C” category and the entire controversy is around these seats.
