Despite the Tamil Nadu government assuring the students of Erode Medical College that they would issue a GO regarding the restructuring of their tuition fees by Friday, the government failed to do so. Students claimed that they have now been told that the GO is likely to come sometime next week.
The students were hoping that by Friday they would receive the GO so they could call off their protests but will now have to be patient for a few more days. Sources said that they had heard that the order is likely to be issued any day next week and hope that it wouldn’t be delayed anymore. The student representative from the Tamil Nadu Medical Students Association had met with Health Secretary J Radhakrishnan earlier this week who had assured them that the GO would be issued soon.
The students have been protesting on and off since 2019 against the administration's set fee structure. After Rajah Muthiah Medical College recently successfully protested for 58 days to get their fees reduced to match government colleges, the Erode medicos decided to launch their own protest on February 5. Both the colleges were previously self-financing colleges that were converted to government colleges, however, they were still being charged fees of a self-financing institute.
The Erode Medical College was previously the IRT Perundurai College. The Institute of Road and Transport Perundurai Medical College was established in 1992 and as the name suggests was established under the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation - this meant that 30 percent of the seats were allotted to children of Transport employees. Then when the government decided to take the college under its wing in 2018, it moved the college from the Transport department to the Health and Family Welfare Department. In the Government Order, it is stated that the college was being handed over to the Department since the State Transport Undertaking is extremely weak and that they are now unable to contribute effectively to the ongoing expenditure of the institute.
