3-fold fee hike in govt medical colleges soon

There is a proposal to triple the amount of course fees of 44 state government- funded medical colleges across the State from the next academic session 2011- 12. The Department of Medical and Technical Education is going to put up the proposal before the state cabinet on Wednesday.

At present, the medical fee in the first year MBBS course is Rs 18,000 which is proposed to be tripled to Rs 45,000. The amount will comprise academic fee worth Rs 40,000 and Rs 5000 towards development charges. There are 14 allopathic medical colleges out of which 4 are in Mumbai alone.

Earlier, the dental colleges used to charge Rs 15,000 as course fee which now would increase to Rs 33000. There are four dental colleges funded by the government. Ayurveda colleges used to charge Rs 7500 as course fee which would now increase to Rs 1800. Nursing course fees would be doubled from Rs 3000 to Rs 6000.

Interestingly, so far no fee was charged to the students doing bachelor in paramedical technology ( BPMT) degree course at 18 government and corporation- run medical colleges. But the department has proposed that they should be charged at least Rs 18000 per year. This will affect over 4500 students.

There are four government run and 16 grantin- aid colleges in Maharashtra that offer degree course in Ayurveda medicine with the capacity of 1030 students. Besides there are 3 Unani colleges with the students capacity of 800.

There is also a proposal to increase by ten percent the course fee every year besides increasing the library deposit amount. Interestingly, the state government spends an annual amount of Rs 4.88 lakh per student in medical college. In private medical colleges, the students are charges Rs 3.15 lakh per year while in dental college the fee amount is Rs 2.5 lakh.