Uniform Fee structure assented to by 9 of 11 Dental colleges affiliated to BFUHS

Faridkot: Nine dental institutes that come under the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) of the total eleven have assented to charging a uniform fee. The nine will be returning the excess fee taken from students after the Ist counselling. This will provide tremendous relief to the student.

The change of fee was decided at a meeting chaired by the BFUHS, Vice chancellor (VC), Dr. Raj Bahadur before the conduction of the 2^nd round of counselling for Master of Dental Surgery(MDS) seats. Sri Guru Ram Das Institute of Dental Sciences and Research, Amritsar, and Christian Dental College, Ludhiana however insisted on wanting to continue with the old fee structure.

The Vice Chancellor had in an earlier attempt tried to bring about parity in fee, by taking up the issue at a meeting, after the Ist counselling. However, a common consensus couldn’t be reached.

“With the sincere efforts of the V-C, the meeting held on Wednesday remained fruitful in terms of fee structure, which varies from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 5 lakh, depending on the popularity of a subject. Other than the Ludhiana and Amritsar colleges, the nine colleges slashed their fee so that there is parity and no exploitation of students in terms of charging of tuition fee,” said a senior official of the varsity.

Meanwhile, the second round of counselling for MDS seats at Guru Gobind Singh Medical College was conducted by the varsity on Wednesday. The MD/MS counselling for seats took placed on Tuesday.

Candidates eligible with reduced cut off percentile for NEET –PG 2017 were asked to fill in their applications by May 29.

100 fresh applications were received by the varsity in the 2^nd round of counselling.74 of these were for MD/MS seats;21 for MDS, and the remaining five for ultrasonography.

MDS, constitute a total of 94 seats. These include 35 in government colleges, 55 in the management quota and four in the all-India category. To bring relief to the BFUHS, and the Punjab Government, the Supreme Court set aside the order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court directing the university to recast the merit list for admission to postgraduate medical courses. The State authorities were given a go ahead to proceed with the counselling process. The exam notification was out in October 2016. And the exam ensued in 2017

The 2^nd counselling however was put a halt to, after rural medical officers moved the High Court, against the varsity and the state government, reports HT .