Fee for super specialty courses hiked by 30%

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, June 24

The Department of Medical Education and Research (DMER) today announced to increase the fee for DM (Doctor of Medicine) and MCh (Master of Surgery) courses by 30 per cent. The annual fee for these courses now ranges from Rs6 lakh to Rs7.80 lakh.

A candidate in Punjab has to pay Rs23.40 lakh as tuition fee to complete a three-year DM or MCh course. The fee is about 3,120 times higher than what is being charged by the PGIMER, Chandigarh.

Two private medical colleges in Punjab offer 12 DM and two MCh seats. An entrance test to fill these 14 super specialty medical seats will be conducted by Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) on July 2.

None of the three government medical colleges in Punjab offer any super specialty course. Among the state-run institutes, only the PGIMER, Chandigarh, has 52 DM and 27 MCh seats in the region.

The annual tuition fee for these courses in the PGIMER is Rs250. Besides, the institute charges Rs900 per annum as laboratory fee and Rs360 for six months as amalgamated fund.

In contrast, the DMER will now charge an annual fee ranging from Rs6 lakh to Rs7.8 lakh. This fee will be collected from the students on the spot by the BFUHS at the time of counselling on July 3.

While every MCh and DM student in the PGIMER gets a stipend of about Rs60,000 per month, there is no clarity on the stipend amount in medical colleges in Punjab, rue aspiring students.

Recently, the fee for the PG medical courses in government colleges was raised from Rs1.35 lakh (for three years) to Rs4.5 lakh for a clinical course and Rs3.3 lakh for a non-clinical course.