Setback to PG Medical Aspirants in Karnataka: 5 fold fee hike in government medical colleges

The state government drastically increased the fee structure for PG medical courses at state-run medical colleges by five times, over a month after increasing the fees at private medical colleges by 15 per cent. Dental College students can breathe a sigh of relief as their fees will remain the same

Bengaluru: MBBS pass outs, who intend to pursue Post- Graduate (PG) medical courses from Karnataka Medical Colleges, will have to pay puffed up fees from this year academic year 2019-2020.

This comes after the state government drastically increased the fee structure for PG medical courses at state run medical colleges by five times, over a month after increasing the fees at private medical colleges by 15 percent.

According to a recent report by TNIE, the fee hike was under discussion over the past two weeks and as a final point on March 14, the State Medical Education Department decided to increase the fee by five times.

With the hike, the fees for PG medical courses will be increased from the 2019-20 academic year:

• Clinical courses will go up from Rs 20,000 to Rs 1 lakh


• Para-Clinical PG medical fee has been fixed at Rs 50,000, up from the previous Rs 10,000.


• PG medical fee for pre-clinical courses will now be Rs 25,000. It was only Rs 5,000 in the 2018-2019

Speaking to TNIE, Medical Education Department director Dr Girish said that the state government had taken a decision on the hike even before the code of conduct came into force. "The official notification has been issued for the same. The fee was hiked last time six years ago," he said.

The reason behind this whopping hike is said to be the increasing maintenance cost of the government medical colleges. "The state government has to spend at least Rs 500 crore to set up a medical college. To maintain infrastructure and salaries, it has to spend few more crores every year," an official informed.

Lucky for MDS aspirants, the State government has decided not to hike the fees for post-graduate course in government dental colleges for the 2019-20 academic year. Currently only one govenrment dental college in the state offers PG dental courses, that is Government Dental College and Research Institute, Bangalore, which has decided to continue charging a fees of Rs 50,000 per annum

Earlier, Medical Dialogues had reported that the state had increased the fee at government medical colleges by 200% for MBBS course. While for PG medical courses, the government decided to increase the fees by 500 percent, now the idea has been implemented.

The proposal to hike fees was forwarded in December during the question hour at the Karnataka Legislative Council.

At the time, Medical Education D K Shivakumar pointed out, "The costs of maintaining colleges are high in Government Medical Institutions. The collection from patients in these institutions are also less as compared to private medical colleges."

This decision of massive fee hike aims to meet the fund requirements of the state-run medical colleges so that the quality of medical education can be enhanced and facilities can be extended to medical college employees. Apparently, the state-run medical colleges were suffering from rough financial situations which were bothering the staff at these institutes.

Read Also: MBBS fee to be hiked by 200 percent, PG by 500 percent at Karnataka Government Medical Colleges

For private medical institutions, fees for Post-Graduate (PG) courses were to be hiked by 15 per cent.

Read Also: Karnataka Private Medical Colleges to hike PG Medical Fee by 15 percent; MBBS to be decided

Strikingly, this decision by the private medical colleges' managements comes despite the massive disclosure made by authorities on the issue of vacant seats.

Read Also: 306 PG medical seats went vacant in 2018 in Karnataka, reveals KEA Data