Days after protesting against the bond policy with no sight of budging down from the state government, the agitating MBBS students of Haryana have come to a compromise, reported The New Indian Express.
Now the students seek the government to slash the bond amount to Rs 5 lakh from Rs 40 lakh and the mandatory service period of seven years to one year, sources told TNIE. They also asked the state to prohibit banks from interfering with the bond policy and demanded that the agreement remains between the state government and the students.
A delegation of students from Pandit Bhagwat Dayal Sharma Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (PGIMS), Rohtak, which has been the epicentre of the protest in the state, met with the state Health Minister, Anil Vij, and submitted their fresh demands. "The minister assured us that our demands will be raised to the Chief Minister," a student from the meeting delegation said, according to TNIE.
However, the students also said that if the government does not take any affirmative steps toward their demands, their ongoing protest will intensify further. The students of PGIMS Rohtak and many other MBBS colleges have been sitting in protest for the last 10 days against the Haryana government's bond policy, which demanded a total of Rs 40 lakh in bond money for medical courses, with Rs 10 lakh introduced in undergraduate medical education. The MBBS students were required to pay the amount at the start of every academic year until the completion of the MBBS degree, which takes four and a half years.
However, after protests, the state government tweaked the policy. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar announced that no student will have to deposit the Rs 10 lakh bond amount at the time of admission for MBBS in government colleges. Instead, the students will have to sign a bond-cum-loan agreement of the amount with the college and the bank concerned. The bachelor's degrees of such students will be issued only after they have met all their financial liabilities. The Haryana government said it has taken this measure to encourage students to serve in government hospitals after their studies.
