After Adesh varsity, SGPC college fixes ‘own’ rules

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, April 1

A day after the Adesh Medical University released its “controversial” rules to make admissions for its MD and MS courses by declining to accept the state government’s fixed tuition fee of Rs 19.50 lakh and increasing the fee to Rs 49.32 lakh, the SGPC-run Sri Guru Ram Das Medical College (SGRDMC), Amritsar, too, on Sunday announced its fee for MD/MS seats as Rs 36.16 lakh.

While both these medical institutions have announced their independent fee structure in alleged violation of a notification issued by the state government on January 25, 2018, to regulate tuition fee in all private and government medical institutions in the state, Adesh and the SGRDMC have announced complete waiver on tuition fee for non-clinical courses.

There would be no fee for three-year non-clinical courses such as anatomy, biochemistry, physiology, microbiology, pathology and pharmacology, announced both medical institutions. However, in its notification, the state government has fixed Rs 7.80 lakh fee for these courses in all private medical institutions.

The move has put Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) in a difficult situation.

As the BFUHS is scheduled to start the centralised counselling to fill all postgraduate medical and dental seats, including MD, MS in all colleges, in the state on April 3, the new fee of these two institutions will pose a challenge for the university during the allotment of seats.

Dr Raj Bahadur, vice chancellor, BFUHS, said the university was bound to conduct the counselling as per the state government’s notification. No medical institute can announce its independent fee structure as it is a violation of the notification, he said.

Dr Baljit Khurana, registrar, Sri Guru Ram Das University, said the SGRDMC had informed the state government about its independent fee structure.

Sanjay Kumar, principal secretary, Department of Medical Education and Research, declined to make any comment on the controversy. Brahm Mohindra, Minister of Medical Education, said he got the information about the fee controversy and was looking into the matter.

Sources said the reason behind both colleges announcing complete fee waiver for non-clinical seats was that a majority of these seats remained vacant every year. The colleges are offering the waiver so that the Medical Council of India does not cancel these seats.