Kerala: Deemed varsities have no panels for fees yet

KOCHI: Students aspiring for admission in professional undergraduate and postgraduate courses in deemed universities are upset that a national admission and fee regulatory committee is yet to come into existence despite a Madras High Court verdict in this regard and similar sentiments expressed by the Supreme Court. Those aspiring for admission to UG and PG medical seats are seriously hit with the medical colleges run by private deemed universities charging very high fees while the Central government or UGC is yet to constitute a fee regulatory committee to tabulate the accounts of these colleges and fix a reasonable fee accordingly. 

In order to curb the exorbitant fee fixed by the private deemed universities, the Madras High Court in 2017 had directed the  UGC and the HRD ministry to set up a regulatory body to fix the fee for MBBS, MD, MS and other courses offered by these institutions. The SC Constitutional Bench in the Modern Dental College vs State of Madhya Pradesh case had ruled in 2016 that the  state can regulate admission, fix fee and stipulate any other regulatory mechanism to enforce merit and curb commercialisation.

“Though the Central Government asked the UGC to set up a committee to regulate the tuition fee for medical courses offered by deemed universities, following the Madras High Court order, no such step has been initiated. The counseling process for the Medical PG courses under NEET PG 2018 will begin next month. Currently the fee for Medical PG in the medical college run by deemed universities range from Rs 24 lakh to Rs 30 lakh,” said an aspiring student hailing from Kozhikode.

“The SC also pointed out that when there can be regulators to fix the charges for telecom firms, fix premium and other charges of insurance companies and also electricity tariff we fail to understand as to why there cannot be a regulatory mechanism when it comes to education,” he said.