High fee in medical colleges ensures low scorers make it

FARIDKOT:A merit-wise analysis of the 1,125 MBBS students who were admitted to eight medical colleges in the state on the basis of their performance in NEET-2108 has revealed that the colleges which charges high fee saw candidates with much lower scores getting admission.

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, June 11

A merit-wise analysis of the 1,125 MBBS students who were admitted to eight medical colleges in the state on the basis of their performance in NEET-2108 has revealed that the colleges which charges high fee saw candidates with much lower scores getting admission.

The analysis conducted by the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) shows that many students with high scores forego these seats because of high fee.

Against 518 marks in NEET-2018 of the last candidate who got admitted to Government Medical College in Faridkot at Rs 4.4 lakh full-course fee, the marks of the last candidate in MBBS course in Adesh Medical College in Bathinda was 314. The full-course fee for MBBS at Adesh College is over Rs 68 lakh.

As per the new notification governing the admission for 1,125 MBBS and 1,230 BDS seats in the state, the Medical Education Department has fixed the fee structure for all government and private (including minority status) medical institutions, the only exception are Adesh Medical College, Bathinda and Desh Bhagat Dental College, Mandi Gobindgarh. As per the notification, both these medical and dental institutions, running under private universities, have all liberty to fix the fee structure.

Those who admitted to Adesh Medical College had less marks than the last aspirant of the general category in each of the government colleges. In case of SC and BC candidates, a student scoring just 13.88 per cent marks (100/720 marks) in NEET-2018 was able to get admission in Adesh Medical College. The NEET score of the last candidate in the SC and BC category in the government colleges was 353 marks.

Though NEET was introduced to encourage intake of meritorious students in the MBBS course, poor performers are using money power to gain admissions, said a senior functionary of BFUHS.

1,125 MBBS seats

1,230 BDS seats

Students prefer... (state quota seats)