Telangana: Private medical varsities charge non-existent' fees

Hyderabad: Students’ and doctors’ associations are reacting sharply to medical colleges in Telangana charging final year undergraduate MBBS students for a non-existent semester. Calling the move “unacceptable”, students’ associations have accused the government and private medical institutions of trying to exploit them.

According to students, medical colleges in the state are now collecting fees for five years (10 semesters), when they are supposed to collect fees for only 4.5 years (nine semesters). This would mean that students in government colleges have to pay Rs 3,500 extra, private colleges Rs 30,000 for convenor quota seats, Rs 5.5 lakh for Management quota and Rs 11 lakh for NRI quota seats.

Dr Vijayender Goud, Chairman, Telangana Junior Doctors Associations (JUDA) said, “The payment for final year by UG students for a non-existing academic year is an injustice to the students.”  He added, “We request the government to provide us information on what provisions, notification or orders they are collecting annual fees for five years. If there are no such provisions, we request the government to issue notice to students and colleges to pay and collect fees only for 4.5 years. If the government is not able to do anything, we will fight this issue in court. We will also give representation to principals of the medical colleges.”

 Dr B. Bhaghav, a final-year undergraduate MBBS student, told this newspaper , “We have nine semesters for 4.5 years, after which we will be doing a one year internship, due to which fees should be collected only for 4.5 years.”

 Dr K. Mahesh Kumar, president, Healthcare Reforms Doctors Associations (HRDA), said, “Collecting an extra half year’s tuition fees for a non-existing academic semester from undergraduate MBBS students is unacceptable and exploitation by medical institutions. We request the government and Health University to give instructions to the principals of all medical colleges to collect fees for only 4.5 academic years, which was so for previous batches.”

Dr B. Karunakar Reddy, vice-chancellor, Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences, told this newspaper, “The problem is that the government has fixed the fees per year as per the Government Order (GO), due to which the fees is considered as first year, second year, third year, fourth year and final year. The last semester is only six months, but the GO doesn’t say that the final year fees should be collected only for six months. Until and unless the GO is amended nothing can be done about it.”

“Earlier, the government had no control over the fees, due to which colleges were collecting donations and huge fees, but since the last two years the government is regulating fees, due to which colleges have to strictly follow the GOs. If the students are still facing a problem with the final year fees, they should approach the government and the Admission & Fee Regulatory Committee (ARFC) and give a representation requesting the government not to collect the fees for the final year. Upon students’ request, the GO can be amended if the government agrees to the students’ proposal but until then students will have to pay for all the five years as per the GO.”