Kerala's private medical colleges cry foul over Rs 5.5 lakh fee regulation, threaten to move court to double fees for MBBS course

As soon as NEET results have been published, the Kerala government published the notification fixing the fees for 85 per cent of the seats in self financing medical colleges at Rs 5.5 lakh per year. The fees for NRI seats have been set at Rs 20 lakh. College managements have cried fould and are expected to move the High Court seeking a stay immediately.

In a move that has come as a bolt from the blue for private college managements across the State, the fee was decided by a panel set up by the state government. The new fee structure is to be followed throughout all the self financed colleges in the state.

With little formal regulation, private medical colleges in Kerala have been known to collect in excess of Rs 20 lakh as fees for normal students and over double that amount for NRI students

The college managements, with the exception of Christian college managements, have said the fees is unacceptable to them. "This fee structure is unacceptable to us. We have told the government that the fees should be at least Rs 9 lakh. Most of the colleges in our association are new and they cannot function with this fee structure," said Fazal Gafoor, a representative of the medical college managements. He said some of the colleges that has accepted the fee structure are old ones and do not have the kind of expenditure that the new ones have.

Listen up: Fazal Gafoor is the representative of the medical college managements

Gafoor said the fees have been decided without any scientific appraisal. "The fees are decided every year and there seems to be no clear basis for this. We demand a system to revise fees is set in place, taking the guidelines put out by the Medical Council of India (MCI)."

Gafoor said they will approach the High Court for redressal.