Junior doctors protest against fee hike in Pvt medical colleges

Hyderabad: 200 junior doctors and PG aspirants took out a protest rally at the Gandhi Medical College on Wednesday, defying the recommendations given by the Telangana Private Medical and Dental Colleges Association's (TPMDCA) to the state government to increase the existing tuition fee for their PG courses. The increase recommended by the TPMDCA is from Rs 3.2 lakh per year to Rs 9-10 lakh per year. Students presently pay Rs. 10 lakh for the 3 year course. If approved, they would have to pay anywhere between Rs 25 - Rs 30 lakh for the three-year course. .

Members of Telangana Junior Doctors Association (TJUDA) from Gandhi Medical College, Osmania Medical College as well as, other private medical colleges were seen resorting to sloganeering against the TPMDCA recommendation for fee hike.

While private medical colleges expressed their inability to offer PG medical and dental seats under the Convenor quota, for the ensuing academic year 2017-18, if the fee wasn't hiked; junior doctors expressed concern over the effect the hike would have on students coming from weaker sections. "The three-fold hike in fees is unacceptable. We demand that the government reject the proposal submitted by the private medical colleges. If it gets passed, students from middle and lower class will be burdened," said Dr G Srinivas, President, TJUDA.

The state of Telangana has 1400 medical seats which are equally divided between the private and government colleges. Of the 700 in the private category- 350 go to the convenor quota and the remaining 350 to the management quota.

The medical practitioners had also given a representation highlighting their problems to Chief Minister, K Chandrasekhar Rao, health minister and state health secretary. However, with none of the quarters responding, the junior doctors had to take recourse to protest demonstrations, to draw the government's attention to the issue. "Private college association allege that they do not have enough funds to run colleges. This is false. Where does all the money from the Management quota go? Instead of devising ways to extort money from students if they tried to recruit more faculty, the quality of education in the state would improve," said Dr T Aarvinda, a junior doctor.