The Admission Overseeing Committee has received close to 60 complaints from students who have enrolled for Pharma D. and B. Pharma courses against private college managements for charging extra fees, beyond the prescribed amount.
For Pharma D. courses, colleges are charging an excess fee of anywhere between ₹80,000 to ₹1.2 lakh, while students have been asked to cough up extra fees in the range of ₹50,000 to ₹75,000 for B. Pharma courses.
The committee has received both online and written complaints from students. Sources in the committee said that notices have been issued to colleges, following which some college managements decided to refund the excess fees.
The cost of a Government quota seat in private colleges for B. Pharma and Pharma D. courses is ₹26,000 and ₹67,000, respectively.
Thirty percent of the total seats are reserved as Government quota seats and students have been allotted seats by the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) based on the ranks obtained in the Common Entrance Test (CET).
Rakshith S., a student from Doddaballapur, said that there has been an increase in demand for pharmacy courses over the past few years as many of the students in low income families from rural areas could not pursue medical and dental courses as the fees have increased drastically.
“So we aim to join pharmacy courses and now colleges have started charging excess fees. Many of us will have to give up on our dreams of pursuing professional courses all together,” he said.
Another student who was admitted in the B. Pharma programme said that many had already paid the extra fees and did not want to raise a complaint as they had completed the admission process. “We do not want to risk losing out on our seats,” she said.
Jayakara S.M., Vice-Chancellor of the Government-run Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, said that they would issue a notice to colleges if they did not refund the excess fees charged from students.
