Thiruvananthapuram: The scholarship scheme announced by the fee regulatory committee headed by Justice Rajendra Babu for financially backward students for MBBS seats in self-financing medical colleges is unlikely to benefit them this academic year as the government has not yet come out with the guidelines though option registration has started on August 8. The registration will close on Aug. 16. The committee, which increased the fee for NRI seats from Rs 15 lakh last year to Rs 20 lakh this year had said in its order that the additional '5 lakh “has to be kept as a corpus for giving scholarship for BPL category candidates, as the interest of the poor and meritorious students also have to be protected by the committee.” There are 390 seats reserved for the NRI students in the state.
With the government yet to come out with the guidelines to implement the scholarship scheme, the fee for every seat remains Rs 5 lakh as fixed by the fee regulatory committee, which could scare away the “poor and meritorious students” whose interest the committee sought to protect. Experts point out that had the government come out with a scheme, it could have ensured admission for a matching number of students as that of the NRI seats for a marginal fee. For example, a college with 15 NRI seats could have admitted at least 15 students from the economically backward sections with less fee. The health minister’s office said that it was for the colleges to constitute such a scholarship as per the fee regulatory committee order. “They can do it only after the fees are collected,” the office said. Justice Rajendra Babu, however, told Deccan Chronicle that the government has to formulate the scheme for the scholarship.
