KOCHI: The stand of the state government as pronounced by health minister K.K. Shailaja that it has nothing to do with the decision of the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee for Professional Colleges to fix the fee for MBBS seats in self financing medical colleges at Rs 5.5 lakh this year has come as a shock to parents and students and is construed a self-goal as well. Experts point out that the committee’s decision to fix fee “provisionally” has no legal backing, either.
Legal experts point out that the mandate of the committee, as explained in the ordinance which gave the committee legal backing, is to fix the fee after calling the relevant documents from the colleges and assessing it. The Ordinance issued on June 1 also states in Clause 8 that “the fee determined by the (fee regulatory) committee shall be applicable to a candidate who is admitted to a private, aided or unaided medical educational institution in that academic year and shall not be revised till the completion of his course in the said institution or university.” This clause effectively makes it impossible for either the institution or any committee to revisit and revise fees after fixing it “provisionally”.
Committee chairman Justice (rtd) R Rajendra Babu in his order fixing the fee had said that he has set the fees now “provisionally” and will be reviewed in two months after the colleges submitted relevant documents. A former chairman of the committee rejected the stand that the panel did not have the time to scrutinise the accounts and decide the fee. “Only the chairman changes while rest of the members including the chartered accountant in the committee remain the same and are abreast with the details and can very well enable the chairman to fix the fee,” he said.
Experts point out that the state government distancing itself from fixing fees is unusual and shocking especially since the SC has made it clear that MBBS admissions should be made from NEET ranklist alone this year. “In this situation, managements cannot collect capitation fee by guile and also make admission as per their whims and fancies,” M. Shajarkhan, state secretary, Save Education Committee, said. “Hence the government can fix the fee as per its assessment or prevail up on its own appointed the Fee Regulatory Committee to wipe out the element of exploitation in the sector and set a much reasonable fee of Rs 2.5 lakh. However, in reality the government has allowed the fee higher than last year’s common fee of Rs 4.40 lakh in Christian medical colleges and is washing its hand off.”
