Higher fee at private medical colleges

Rs.1.65 lakh for merit seats; NRI seats’ fee goes up to Rs.10.5 lakh; no change for BPL seats

Eight medial colleges under the Kerala Private Medical College Managements Association will charge Rs.1.65 lakh for 30 per cent of the merit seats in each institution. Last year this fee was Rs.1.5 lakh.

This was decided at a meeting between association representatives led by its secretary V. Anil Kumar and the government represented by Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and Health Minister V.S. Sivakumar.

Mr. Anil Kumar told

The Hindu that these colleges would charge Rs.7 lakh for the management seats, up Rs.50,000 from last year. There would be a refundable deposit of Rs.7 lakh. For the NRI seats, the fee has been hiked from Rs.9.5 lakh to Rs.10.5 lakh.

“There would be no change in the fee of Rs.25,000 for the BPL category students for which we have kept aside 20 per cent seats,” he said.

Mr. Sivakumar told The Hindu that the government agreed to what it felt was a moderate hike in the fee. “The managements wanted Rs.2.5 lakh for the merit seats. We felt it would have been too much of a hike. So during negotiations we brought it down to Rs.1.65 lakh. Overall there would not be too much of a burden on students,” he explained.

The government would permit the association to hold a separate test for admissions to the management seats, after studying the legal implications of the Supreme Court verdict on this issue.

The colleges which agreed to the above mentioned fee are the Malabar Medical College; the KMCT Medical College; the MES Medical College; the Sree Narayana Medical College; the Assisia Medical College; the Travancore Medical College; the SUT Medical College; and the Gokulam Medical College.