Pvt. medical, dental colleges term fee stipulated by govt. as unviable

Say they will not admit students in PG courses in 2020-21

Stating that the fee structure approved by the government was not viable, members of the Andhra Pradesh Private Medical and Dental Colleges Managements’ Association (APPMDCMA) on Friday announced their decision to withdraw from Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences counselling process for admission to PG Medical/Dental courses.

In a letter addressed to the Special Chief Secretary, Health, Medical and Family Welfare Department, association secretary G. Kasimbi said they would not admit students to PG courses for the academic year 2020-21.

Uniform structure

Drawing the official’s attention to the fact that the association in the past had approached him with a plea to implement uniform fee structure for all categories of students admitted to a programme as enunciated in the apex court judgment in the TMA Pai Vs State of Karnataka (2002), Mr. Kasimbi said the association had urged the authorities to ensure that 85% of all eligible PG seats should have the same fee structure, and a higher fee might be fixed for 15 NRI quota seats.

The association had also made an appeal that fixation of the fee should be based on the books of expenditure as audited, taking into account inflation, furtherance of education and accounts submitted to the Income Tax Department without profiteering.

Mr. Kasimbi said, as per GO No. 56 released on Friday (May 29), the fee structure for PG students of Medical and Dental courses was almost 40% to 60 % below the fee in vogue for the past four years.

“It appears that you have also not taken into account the expenditure incurred on various services provided to the students, depreciation values on equipment, infrastructure, horticulture and other maintenance cost of the institution. From the figures quoted in the fee structure, it is seen that the total annual fee per student does not amount to even 20 % of the stipend paid to the student in pre-clinical subjects and 40 % in para clinical subjects,” the letter said.

Difficult times

Through the letter, the members sought to draw the government’s attention to the difficult period faced by the private unaided non-minority medical and dental colleges in the State due to COVID-19 pandemic.

“The hospitals of the private institutions are taken over by the government for providing services to the COVID patients and non-COVID patients are not admitted, and so no revenue is generated from these hospitals,” they said.

Despite acute financial crisis, the managements had been paying full salaries to the faculty, both teaching and non-teaching and health workers as directed by the government.

Stating that the institutions had been finding it difficult to meet both ends meet, they said the GO 56 was not viable and, therefore, they would withdraw from the counselling process.

The letter was signed by managements of 12 private medical colleges and 13 private dental colleges.