BENGALURU: The state government, which had recently hiked the fee for postgraduate medical courses at private colleges, has now also increased the fee at government medical colleges by five times. The fee hike was under discussion over the past two weeks. On Thursday, the state medical education department decided to increase the fee by five times. With the hike, the fee for clinical courses will go up from Rs 20,000 to Rs 1 lakh from the 2019-20 academic year.
The fee for para-clinical PG medical fee has been fixed at Rs 50,000, up from the previous `10,000. The PG medical fee for pre-clinical courses will now be Rs 25,000. It was only Rs 5,000 in the 2018-2019 academic year. Students will have to pay the hostel and university fees separately. 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.
According to the officials concerned, increasing maintenance cost of the government medical colleges triggered the proposal to increase the fee. “The state government has to spend at least `500 crore to set up a medical college. To maintain infrastructure and salaries, it has to spend few more crores every year,” said an official.
For MBBS, the state had increased the fee at government medical colleges by 200%. During 2018-19 admissions, students were asked to pay Rs 50,000 fee plus Rs 9,000 university fee.
The fee for postgraduate degree courses at government dental colleges was also discussed. It is likely to be finalised on Friday.