Uttarakhand: Whooping Rs 15 crore fine imposed on Medical College for an arbitrary fee hike

Dehradun: A fine of Rs 15 crore was imposed on Shri Guru Ram Rai Institute of Medical and Health Sciences (SGRRIMHS) for charging a fee in accordance to their whims from students of the 2016-17 batch. The fine has been slapped by the Uttarakhand committee for fixation of fee structure of private educational institutions. They have been amidst controversy ever since they arbitrarily raised the student fee.

TOI reports that the medical college has been asked to pay Rs. 10 lakh fine per student of the 2016-17 MBBS course batch by the fee fixation Committee(FFC).

The action on the part of the FFC was taken following student complaints to the state government and the medical education department. Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that the current batch of students has been opposing the management’s decision to hike fee from Rs 5 lakh to Rs. 19 lakh per year.

“The committee has slapped a fine of Rs 10 lakh per student on SGRRIMHS for charging a fee from the students apart from the one decided by the fee fixation committee. The fine is applicable for the 2016-17 batch students,” said a senior official present at the FFC meeting to the TOI.

Senior PRO, Bhupendra Raturi, however, justifying the medical college decision told the daily , “Our institute had already informed the high court that the fee decided by the state government was six-year-old though it is revised every third year. The college had informed about the fee hike to the students and 90% students had agreed to it.”

Earlier the college had raised a voice of concern over the FFC’s old fees structure, claiming that it needed revision. However, with the students and parents moving court, the matter now stands sub judice.

However, SGRRIMHS students have informed TOI that they were called inside the college’s administrative block on Monday night, after the issuance of the FFC order, and made to sign a letter which read: “We gave fee as per our convenience and this can also be verified from our receipts of the past two years. We further affirm that we were not forced to pay the excess tuition fee at any time by the college authorities nor did they debar us from classes/exams. Any action taken by the state government against the college is not acceptable and regrettable because it is an unlawful activity.”

Students complained of undergoing extreme anxiety due to the ensuing struggle between the management and the FFC and the oncoming exam this week.

In an earlier report, done by the Medical Dialogues team, it was reported that the ambiguous act on the part of the Uttarakhand Assembly to give a free hand to private medical colleges and universities on the fee structure for undergraduate and post-graduate courses, saw a backlash in the Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences deciding to hike its fee for its MD (doctor of medicine) courses by more than 300%This hike came days after a similar one by the Shri Guru Ram Rai Institute of Medical & Health Sciences, which had also hiked its fee by 300%.

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