MBBS seats: SGPC-run college scraps govt quota

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, July 1

Sri Guru Ram Das Institute of Medical Sciences and Research (SGRDIMSR), Amritsar, today announced to bring its 75 government-quota MBBS seats under the management quota. The SGPC-run college has also increased the tuition fee for these seats from Rs 13.43 lakh to Rs 46.10 lakh.

The Secretary, Department of Medical Education and Research (DMER), has asked the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS), Faridkot, to probe the matter and question the SGRDIMSR for these sudden changes.

“We have no official information about the government-quota seats being brought under the management quota and the three-fold hike in the tuition fee. The process to make admissions in all medical and dental colleges is under way,” said Vikas Partap, Secretary, DMER.

On June 3, the Medical Education Department had issued a notification to fill the government-quota MBBS seats (75 of the total 150) in the SGPC-run college. As the statute of a private university for the college is yet to be approved by the state government, the distribution of seats there shall be as per the old formula — 50 per cent seats under government quota and the remaining under management/minority quota, including 15 per cent NRI quota, read the notification.

While the tuition fee for the government-quota seats is Rs 10.43 lakh, the DMER had fixed Rs 40.29 lakh as fees for the management/minority-quota seats.

In a public notice issued this evening, the SGRDIMSR announced that the tuition fees for its 127 MBBS seats will be Rs 46.10 lakh while the fees for 23 seats under NRI quota is fixed at US $ 1,26,500. Further, the college has introduced registration fees, which will be charged at the rate of 15 per cent of the total tuition fees and will be applicable to all seats.

SGRDIMSR Principal Geeta Sharma said the college had every right to decide its seat quota and fee structure as it was in the process of becoming an autonomous medical university.

“Though the statute of converting the medical college into a university is yet to be approved, there is nothing wrong in fixing seats and fees,” she said, adding that several other medical colleges, which were in the process of getting the university status, were adopting the same procedure.

BFUHS Vice-Chancellor Dr Raj Bahadur said the university had no information about the college bringing its government-quota seats under the management quota.