Med education for elite? Pvt institutes charge Rs45-75 lakh

Karam Prakash

Tribune News Service

Patiala, July 2

The counselling for MBBS seats in the state begins today. With more than 40 per cent seats for the current academic session being already pegged at Rs 45 lakh per student, medical education in the state, seemingly, has become elitist.

After the government failed to put a cap on the fee charged for the MBBS course by private medical institutions, the format of medical education, unfortunately, seemed to be meant for affluent.

In fact, out of the total 1,125 MBBS seats in eight medical institutions across the state, 625 seats are at five private institutions while 500 seats belong to three government medical colleges (GMCs). Barring seats in GMCs, all remaining seats are at the disposal of private institutions and are beyond the reach of the poor.

Students who were pinning their hopes on bagging an MBBS seat in the state this year have to dig deep into their pockets as private colleges are charging fee between Rs 45 and 70 lakh per course.

One of the private institutions — Adesh University, Bathinda — this year will be charging Rs 68 lakh as tuition fee for the course, besides Rs 7.1 lakh for hostel charges. Even the government quota seats in private institutes are pegged at Rs 13.5 lakh. Moreover, the government quota of MBBS seats in private institutions is very less.

Apart from this, private colleges charge lakhs of rupees in the name of development charges every year.

No new government medical college has been set up in the state since 1973 when the Faridkot college was started. The Mohali medical college, which was to be set off this year, also got stuck and couldn’t start.

Though the Congress government has promised to set up three new colleges, the way things are going more government colleges in the state seem a distant reality.

A father of an MBBS aspirant in Patiala, Rakesh Kumar, said, “The government has failed to set up government colleges, therefore students are compelled to take admission in these private institutes.”