Punjab lets down medical aspirants

Vishav Bharti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 9

After sitting on a proposed amendment to fix the issue for a year, the Punjab Government has formed yet another committee to “study the problems of fee structure of private medical colleges” — in effect once again closing the doors of private medical colleges for several meritorious aspirants because of the high fee structure.

Before the Congress came to power in 2017, medical admissions were carried out under The Punjab Private Health Sciences Educational Institutions (Regulation of Admission, Fixation of Fee and Making of Reservation) Act, 2006. Under the legislation, at least 50 per cent MBBS and BDS seats in private colleges were filled by the government and the fee for the entire course used to be around Rs 13 lakh.

Bypassing the Act and a Supreme Court judgment, the Congress government surrendered its right of determining the fee for 50 per cent seats. The outcome was that last year (2018-19), Adesh Medical College, Bathinda; Christian Medical College, Ludhiana; and Sri Guru Ram Das Medical College, Amritsar, charged Rs 50-70 lakh for the five-year course.

After drawing flak, the government claimed it would regulate the fee structure. It first spoke of bringing in an ordinance (which has a validity of six months), but did not. Then the department was asked to prepare a draft to amend the Act, but despite the Advocate General’s clearance in September last year, it was not brought before the Cabinet or in the Vidhan Sabha.

The amendment sought to insert “private medical universities”, making it applicable to all institutes and bringing down the MBBS fee from Rs 70 lakh to Rs 15 lakh. Satish Chandra, Additional Chief Secretary, Medical Education and Research, agreed that in this session it might not be possible to regulate the fee of private medical colleges. He said they would  try to get the opinion of the Cabinet sub-panel at the earliest.

According to legal experts, if the government really has the will to regulate the fee, even the existing legislation empowers it to decide it.

“Another option is to bring an ordinance, but it seems the government is hell-bent on favouring private colleges,” said Sandeep Gupta, who had filed a PIL. Parvesh Garg, whose daughter got a good rank in NEET, said he was worried if private colleges “sell” the 50 per cent seats, there would be 150 or so less seats this year for the meritorious.

Government in slow mode to fix issue 

• In July last year, government claimed it had started process to amend Act to regulate the fee at private medical universities

• Medical Education and Research Department sent the draft of the Act to government in August

• Draft cleared by AG, not brought before House

• 15 Cabinet meetings in past eight months, issue nowhere on agenda