Kerala:State govt, private medical colleges fight it out on fee structures

Kochi: The issue of seat sharing and fee structure still hangs in balance as the state government and private medical college managements have not been able to arrive at any consensus on them. The government after seeking a legal response on the issues, will call for another session on the two issues raised by private managements of medical colleges.

The two issues raised by private college managements include

1. procedures related to selection of students for management seats from the NEET ranking list and


2. if NEET was to be the criterion for management seat selection then, whether it be improper to have a fee variation between the two categories.

There has also been a demand for withdrawal of the three-year agreement with the four Christian management colleges, and prevalence of uniformity of fee structure for all institutions.

"The demand is either have uniform fee structure for all seats, with 10 % seats reserved for poor students or have differential fee structure, with substantial high fees for management and NRI seats," said Additional Chief Secretary (Health), Rajeev Sadanandan.