VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh Higher Education Regulatory and Monitoring Commission (APHERMC) has fixed the fees for PG medical and dental courses in private un-aided colleges for 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23 using 2016-17 as the base year. However, the Private Medical and Dental Colleges Managements’ Association said this would be unviable, and decided not to admit students to PG courses in 2020-2021.
“Generally, fees of the previous academic year are considered when fixing new fees. But fees were increased unreasonably in 2017-18 by the previous government. For instance, management-quota fee was hiked from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 26 lakh. The fees were then incorrectly fixed by the government after consulting college managements, and not by the Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee. In order to help students, we decided to consider 2016-17 as the base year. A maximum of 10 per cent of fees will be increased each year,” said Commission secretary Rajshekhar.
Institutions charging exorbitant fee will face penalty, says APHERMC
Institutions cannot charge any other amount over and above the fees fixed by the commission. If they do so, it would amount to charging of capitation fee, and those responsible could face a penalty under the APHERMC rules and be prosecuted under Section 9 of Act 5 of 1983. The fixed fees are for tuition, admission, laboratory/library, computer/internet, maintenance and amenities, extra-curricular activities, development, other recurring expenses, and special charges. Hostel, transport and mess charges are not included. The same fee structure is applicable for new courses or colleges during the block period 2020-21 to 2022-23. Institutions will collect the annual fee in two half-yearly installments in advance.
It will continue for students admitted during the block period of 2020-21 to 2022-23 till they complete their courses. The stipend paid to PG students will be on a par with that given in government colleges. The State has 14 private PG medical colleges and 13 private PG dental colleges. The APHERMC also said the government has decided that seats vacated by Backward Class (BC) candidates must only be filled by another BC or Scheduled Caste candidate.
Meanwhile, the Andhra Pradesh Private Medical and Dental Colleges Managements’ Association wrote to Special Chief Secretary, Health Medical and Family Welfare Department, KS Jawahar Reddy, saying, “We are dismayed to see... that the fee structure for PG students of medical and dental courses is almost 40-60 per cent below the fee in vogue for the past four years. It appears that you have also not taken into account the expenditure incurred on various services provided to the students, depreciation values of equipment, infrastructure, horticulture and other maintenance costs of institutions.” “Private unaided non-minority medical and dental colleges in the State are going through a very difficult phase due to coronavirus pandemic.
Hospitals of the private institutions are taken over by the government for providing services to coronavirus patients. Non-Covid patients are not admitted and no revenue is being generated from hospitals. Further, all faculty are paid full salaries by the managements. The institutions are finding it difficult to make ends meet... Under the circumstances, we unanimously decided to withdraw from Dr NTR University of Health Sciences’ counselling process for admission to PG medical/dental courses in our member institutions and not to admit students to PG courses for the academic year 2020-2021.”