The University Grants Commission’s decision to regulate fee structure of deemed universities should ensure growth and sustainability, said P. Sathyanarayanan, president of SRM Institute of Science and Technology.
The issue of regulating fee structure, especially in medical colleges, had been raised several times, after the introduction of NEET.
“The Association of Deemed Universities has given details of the expenses incurred by the institutions for MBBS, BDS to the government. In a question asked in Parliament, the former Health Minister in earlier regime had mentioned that it cost ₹28 lakh per year for an MBBS student,” Mr. Sathyanarayanan told reporters here. The government’s move was welcome as it was trying to balance the cost and quality of education. “This was the ideas on which private engineering colleges were started during MGR’s regime in 1985, who advocated setting aside 50% seats for management quota,” he said, adding that the government should ensure that private institutions were able to sustain themselves.
“The main source of income for institutions like ours is student fees. Though we may have a big hospital with a capacity of 1,500 beds, medical treatment is completely free. We have to incur expenses on that too. So I am sure the government will think of all this so that we can become sustainable and grow and compete with other international universities,” he said.
The SRM Medical College was striving to add 100 more seats to the MBBS programme from next year, he said.
The institute is the recipient of STEM impact award; Green Metric Award; AICTE-CII IndPact Award for the best industry-linked institution for electrical engineering and allied institute; University of the Year Award 2019 from FICCI; and three ‘swachhata’ ranking awards from AICTE, said Vice Chancellor Sandeep Sancheti.
