Cross Subsidy: PG medical aspirants this year likely to be charged lower fee in Maharashtra

Mumbai: The students, who are intending to purse Post-Graduate (PG) medical courses in the academic year of 2019-2020, are likely to benefit in a big way from the Fee Regulating Authority’s (FRA) recent decisions.

According to recent media reports, the Fee Regulating Authority, (which decides the tuition charges for all professional colleges in Maharashtra) has apparently decided that “excess” fees charged by medical colleges from PG students admitted under the Management and NRI quota last year should now be used to cross-subsidize the fees charged from students this year. Medical colleges in the state, have 35% for Management Quota, 50% seats for Merit Quota, and 15% are Non-Residential Indian (NRI) seats.

This implies that the medical students who will be admitted in PG courses in 2019-2020 will have to pay one-third or half of the fees paid by the PG students last year.

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Last year in March, the FRA allowed private managements to go ahead and fix their NRI and institutional quota seats on their own saying after the medical institutes had demanded a 1:5:5 ratios for fees of Merit, Management and NRI quota students, citing a Supreme Court order which allows these institutes colleges to charge five times the fees from the last two categories. When the FRA directed the colleges to follow a 1:3:5 ratios in its place, they retaliated. As a negotiation, the ratio was finalized at 1:4:5.

At that time, the FRA had warned, “However, if fees for NRI seats will be charged at five times the state quota fee, it will lead to a dramatic 50-60% reduction in fees of state quota students for next year.”

Read Also: Maharashtra: FRA allows private medical colleges to charge Differential fee

In a meeting that took place last week, the FRA stayed with its word and decided to cross-subsidise the fee for PG courses this academic year.

FRA published a document entailing the fees that would be charged by the 5 mentioned medical colleges for MBBS, MS and MD. The regulator is in the process of determining the fee structure of the rest of the medical institutes. The details of PG courses’ fees are mentioned below:

• Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh Memorial Medical College, Amravati will conduct MD/MS course at Rs 11,85,000 .


• MIMSR Medical College Latur will impart MD/MS education at Rs 3,60,000.


• At Dr Vasantrao Pawar Medical College, Hospital and Research Centre, Nashik, the students will pay Rs 2.81 lakh per annum, much less than Rs 8.55 lakh paid by the previous batch.


• MD/MS students at Sanjeevan Medical Council, Miraj will have to pay Rs 3,25,000.


• Post Graduate Institute of Swasthiyog Pratishthan wil conduct MD/MS course at Rs 11,00,000.

For more details, take a look at the table attached below:

Speaking to HT regarding the decision, a member of FRA stated, “We consider the preceding academic year’s balance sheet to determine the fees of an institute. The money charged in excess to FRA’s fee structure from NRI and management quota students has been accounted as income to the institutes. Hence, the students who will be admitted in 2019-20 will pay lower fees.”

Read Also: Maharashtra: FRA discusses Quota fee issues with private colleges, Govt

“Unrealistic” fees?

The medical colleges’ authorities have said that the fees fixed by the fee regulatory body are unrealistic as the administration also pays the stipends of the medicos working at the medical institutes, which comes from the profit acquired from the fees collected by these students only.

“FRA didn’t consider many of the expenses incurred by the colleges. For example, we pay around Rs 6 lakh annual stipend to PG students. It won’t be possible to run the college with these fees,” said Vice-Dean of a medical college.

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