Punjab: Govt delays to impose MBBS Fee Regulation on Medical Universities

This law modification is aimed to restrain the MBBS fee to Rs 15 lakh from the current Rs 50-70 lakh, which the Adesh Medical College, Bathinda, Christian Medical College CMC, Ludhiana, and Sri Guru Ram Das College, Amritsar are allegedly charging.

Chandigarh: The much-talked fee regulation on private medical universities, who are charging exorbitant fees by MBBS students; is going to sit around a long time, implies the holdup by the Punjab Government.

Medical Dialogues had reported in October last year that the state government had sought an amendment to the Punjab Private Health Sciences Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission, Fixation of Fee and Making of Reservation) Act, 2006, to include all those private medical universities that have spread out rapidly over the past one decade.

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The Act seeks to provide for the regulation of admission, fixation of the fee, and the making of reservation in private health sciences educational institutions in the state of Punjab and for the matters connected therewith.

With the new amendment, the government had sought to insert the word “private medical universities” so that the Act could be applicable to all private institutes, including the universities, reports Tribune.

However, with the budget session about to start from February 12, the Cabinet has not even discussed the issue. As per the admission schedule, the notification for admission has to be issued in the first week of February.

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This decision to present this amendment is pursuant to the condemnation that the state government had faced for a long time on behalf of allowing private medical universities to charge an exorbitant fee for MBBS course. The government’s allowance to these medical institutions came as defeat in an argument in which the latter affirmed that there was no such provision in law over MBBS fee structure.

Earlier the state government faced a lot of flak after the Department of Medical Education and Research (DMER) waived off the 50 per cent government quota seats in private medical colleges, making all seat management quota seats. 3 medical colleges namely Adesh Medical College, Bathinda, Christian Medical College CMC, Ludhiana, and Sri Guru Ram Das College, Amritsar. This was on the basis of reasoning that the above institutions were not just private medical colleges, but universities and hence government had no control over their seats of fee structure.

Read Also: MBBS Admissions in Punjab: NO government quota at these 3 medical colleges

Read Also: Punjab: Sri Guru Ram Das, Adesh University say NO to Govt Quota, Fix their own fees for MBBS

This amendment is, therefore, going to give substantial power to the state government over these private medical Institutions by regulating their MBBS fee structure.

Expectantly, this law modification will restrain the MBBS fee to Rs 15 lakh from Rs 50-70 lakh, which the Adesh Medical College, Bathinda, Christian Medical College CMC, Ludhiana, and Sri Guru Ram Das College, Amritsar are currently charging.

The amendment Bill had been cleared by the Office of Advocate General in September and was then shifted to with the Legal Remembrancer. The Additional Chief Secretary, Satish Chandra, had sent the draft to the government around three months ago. To get this amendment in action, the government intended to table the Bill in the winter session of the Vidhan Sabha. However, no action has been taken yet.

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In the past three months, the government has neither placed it in any of the Cabinet meetings, the outcome of which was that the amendment could not be placed in the winter session.

Additional Chief Secretary, Satish Chandra informed Tribune that the matter was under deliberation with the Chief Minister.