A committee under a Supreme Court judge will soon start work to review the highly dissimilar fees pattern of medical education in the country. Concern has been voiced from several quarters over the high price of medical education and exuberant fees charged for these courses, which prevents many an aspirants from fulfilling their dream of becoming a doctor besides posing a talent shortage in healthcare delivery. According to sources, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has also received a lot of complaints and representations on this. The move has been also necessitated because several NRI quota seats and others in many colleges are not getting filled of late.
So, the Government has decided to form a committee which will have representatives from ministry of HRD, ministry of health and family welfare, oversight committee and other experts to look into the reasons for high fee and how is that the same course is priced very differently by different institutions. According to a source, the committee will see how the fee can be rationalized and the whole issue will be examined scientifically as the variation at some places is between Rs 3 lakh to Rs 30 lakh per annum in the same region for the same course.
The Government is readying to offset relaxation in MCI regulations to increase PTR ratio at PG level so that an additional 1500 PG admissions can be facilitated. The Government objective is achieves WHO norm in doctor population ratio of 1: 1000 with increase in number of seats. 15000 new seats may be added to current 59,000 seats available currently under this new drive expected to start early next year. Each district hospital is being looked at as potential medical lab for the students and may get a development boost as a result soon.
