Maharashtra: DMER issues show cause notices to pvt medical colleges

Pune: The Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) issued show cause notices to two private medical colleges, for imposing a fee way beyond that permissible by the Fee Regulating Authority (FRA), for the NRI quota seats.

Maharashtra Institute of Medical Sciences and Research (MIMSR), Latur and Maharashtra Institute of Medical Education and Research (MIMER), Talegaon- stated that they have not been able to iron out fee differences with the FRA, leading them to decide the fee for institutional quota on their own.

The DMER had earlier intimated 16 private colleges in the state to submit the fee they planned to charge for PG courses. Their submissions revealed that some of them were not following the fee set by the FRA and charging beyond the set norms.The FRA asked them to submit a revised fee, which they complied to.

However, the above stated two institutes refused to provide revised rates for their PG courses, leading the DMER to impose show cause notices on both the institutes- for charging Rs 60 lakh in MIMSR and Rs 70 lakh in MIMER

"The private colleges were issued notices after they were not ready to cut the fees for PG courses. They cannot charge an amount more than the FRA has permitted. Most of the institutes had agreed to cut the fees amount but these two are not. If they have any issues, they can approach our office and submit valid reasons behind the high amount of fees. If they have valid reasons, we will consider it." Dr Pravin Singare, Director, DMER told Mirror.

Earlier these colleges filled up 50% through the government merit list,15 per cent through the NRI quota and 35 per cent from institutional quota. However, last year saw a change with the government deciding to fill all the seats in private medical colleges on the basis of merit and asked all medical colleges — deemed university medical colleges, government medical college, and private medical colleges — to submit fee details to DMER.

MIMER's Suchitra Nagre told Pune Mirror, "The fees decided by the FRA are very less in comparison to the college expenses. The situation across the state is same. The fees charged by medical colleges in the state are very less compared to other colleges rest of the country. The institute can't survive with such a meagre amount of fees. DMER should consider for revising the fees for the NRI quota, institutional quota and even for the merit quota tuition fees. But no one is bothered to look into the problem the institute is suffering from. We are paying Rs 51,000 as stipend for these students and the tuition fees for them is Rs 6 lakh. At end of the course, a student is virtually taking Rs 6 lakh from the institute. The expenses on this student has to be borne by other students. We have to even bear expenses towards staff salaries and other overhead costs."