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

Mumbai: The Fee Regulating Authorities(FRA), latest announcement of cancelling the differential fee structures for state seats, institutional quota and NRI seats had not gone down well with the management of private colleges a fortnight ago. This has led to the fee regulating body meet up with the management of private colleges and government officials to discuss the matter of PG fee.

Last year private college managements had set the NRI and management quota seats at three to four times the merit and state quota seats.

The meeting between the FRA, government authorities and the college management has been brought about due to the private institutions refusing to tow the FRA line and announcing their decision to refrain from the admission process in totality.

“We told the FRA that we have been following the three-tier fee system and the same is being followed since 20 years. That was DMER’s proposal,” Dr Pravin Shingare, Head, Directorate of Medical Education and Research told TOI.

In a story done by the Medical dialogues team last week it was reported that private medical colleges had in a quick move after the Fee Regulating Authority came up with a diktat in a circular for them to charge the same fee under various quotas, asked the state government to issue a directive to the FRA to reverse their decision.

At a meeting between representatives of private medical institutes and the minister of state medical education, the private institutions have demanded that the state government allow them to charge five times the regular fees to NRI students. The state authorities were to take a final decision on the same day.

“The FRA is a quasi-judicial body that looks into the fee structure and ensures that institutes don’t indulge in profiteering. They cannot decide the fee structure,” Kamal Kishore Kadam, President, Association of Management of Unaided Private Medical and Dental Colleges (AMUPMDC)told TOI.