Maharashtra government has decided to set up a Rs. 100 crore fund to offer assistance to brilliant students with poor financial background seeking admissions to medical and engineering colleges in the state.

According to senior officials with the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER), the amount will be utilized for the overall academic expenses of students including fees, books, infrastructure, research activities etc. for meritorious students.

Since the amount will be equally shared between the engineering and medical streams, only half of the amount is expected to be utilized for medical students.

According to DMER officials, a good number of MBBS students and few dental students would benefit from the proposed scheme of the government.

"Students from Maharashtra would be the major beneficiaries of the scheme," said a DMER official.

Amid all the court cases currently being heard in the Bombay High Court and in the Supreme Court, against the State's admission and fee structuring procedures, nothing concrete could be foreseen as to when admissions in the Maharashtra medical colleges would take place. It will take at least a month from now to assess whether the admission procedures and fee structure would be the same or not for the private colleges and the government colleges.

However, on the basis of the 2002 Supreme Court Judgment binding on the private unaided and minority colleges in determining their own fee structure, it is for sure that the medical fees in the medical colleges are bound to rise. Keeping with the terms, the new fee structure within the government medical colleges is bound to rise, said a DMER functionary.

In such a scenario, a financial assistance in this form from the government will prove to be a relief for the financially weak students, who were finding it difficult to secure admission even under the current fee structure.

Senior doctors in the state were excited about this helping gesture of the government. The financial assistance was an addition to the generous heavy subsidization of the state medical education. "Already the government is bearing a huge brunt on account of high subsidization of medical education. It takes the government to spend Rs. 8-10 lakhs for educating a medical student, to which it charges only one-tenth of the amount from the student. In addition to that, the financial assistance is a gesture that is praise worthy and cannot be equaled," said Dr. M.E. Hewlekar, Dean, Sion Hospital, Mumbai.

According to him, many talented students in the state miss out on medical education due to lack of finances.