Uttarakhand: Fee in Government Medical Colleges proposed to be higher

Shimla: Two government medical Colleges at Shimla and Tanda are proposing to raise their fee structure in order make it akin to private medical colleges. This has been initiated in consultation with a high level committee. If granted a cabinet nod, students applying to the two colleges will have to pay more.

The two colleges in question are : Indira Gandhi Medical College at Shimla and Dr Rajendra Prasad Medical College at Tanda in Kangra.

A fee hike consent by the state government in these two, will automatically lead to a raise in the fee structure of the four new medical institutions coming up in Nahan, Chamba and Hamirpur and Ner Chowk in Mandi district.

The next cabinet meeting of the committee headed by the Chief Secretary and other participating members, including the Principal Secretary (Health), and Director, Medical Education, will take the final call on the issue of fee enhancement.

The decision has also been prompted by the fact that there are no buyers of the 15 paid NRI quota seats, at Nahan Medical College, for which the admission process is already over.

Health and Family Welfare Minister, Kaul Singh Thakur, has also confirmed the move to enhance the fee, at all the government medical colleges.

According to him, the committee’s recommendations on the issue of fee hikes will be tabled at the forthcoming cabinet meeting. “The fee could be enhanced from the present Rs 45,000 for one semester to about Rs 70,000 in all the government medical colleges, including the four new ones,” said Thakur.

It is believed that the committee has also put in a word regarding raising the charges for NRI quota seats , from the fixed 12 lac to 15 lac, per annum in all government medical colleges.

The existing medical colleges at Shimla and Tanda in Kangra have 100 seats each. Recently, Maharishi Markandeshwar Medical College in Solan district faced a lot of flak over the fee being charged by it.