If deemed universities and self-financing medical colleges are forced to collect only around ₹18,000 per year from 50% of MBBS students, then those institutions will have no option but to collect a whopping ₹50 lakh to ₹60 lakh per year from the other 50% of students, Education Promotion Society for India (EPSI), an association of various educational institutions, argued before the Madras High Court on Monday.
Appearing before Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice N. Mala, seized of a batch of cases filed against the National Medical Commission’s (NMC) February 3 office memorandum, senior counsel Vijay Narayan, representing EPSI, said it was unfair on the part of the NMC to order that all deemed universities and private medical colleges in the country should collect fee on a par with government medical colleges in their respective States and Union Territories for 50% of their intake.
He pointed out that self-financing colleges charged somewhere between ₹15 lakh to ₹20 lakh per year from MBBS students, and the fees in deemed universities was between ₹25 lakh to ₹30 lakh a year. Even the State government, in an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court in a case against the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, had stated it costs around ₹30 lakh to educate every MBBS student, whereas it subsidises the fees heavily.
