The Parents’ Association of Medical Students (PAMS) has submitted a memorandum to the Jagirdar Committee appointed by the Supreme Court to examine the current fee structure of private medical colleges in the state of Maharashtra.

In its memorandum, the PAMS has requested that its suggestions based on a study report of the ICWA costing committee appointed by the Maharashtra government be considered, before the Jagirdar Committee finalizes the fee structures of the MBBS course as well as other medical courses.

Incidentally, the ICWA committee had reported that the operating cost per student for MBBS and BDS course would amount to Rs.1.09 lakh and Rs.81614 respectively.

PAMS has suggested that private medical colleges should not be allowed to collect additional money other than tuition fees, under the pretext of building fund, development fund etc. If any college has collected these, refunds should be made to students immediately, the memorandum has suggested. In this connection, it has specifically cited the Amravati-based Punjabrao Deshmukh Medical College.

Private colleges have collected Rs.5300 as eligibility fees, whereas the registration fees of the Maharashtra University of Health Sciences (MUHS) as well as government colleges is Rs.600, it has been pointed out. PAMS would therefore like excess fees to be refunded to students of private medical colleges.

It would like private medical colleges to stop the practice of asking bank guarantees for the entire course of five years, since this causes a lot of financial burden to students’ parents.

According to PAMS, tuition fees collected by private medical colleges should be used exclusively for recurring regular expenditure and not for capital expenditure.

The parents’ organization would also like the Maharashtra government to give private medical colleges concessions in terms of municipal tax and water tax, to bring down their expenses and thus enable them to reduce tuition fees. It has called for all possible efforts to bring down MBBS fees to below Rs.1.09 lakh.

It has suggested that since private medical colleges have received government land at “throw away prices” and also utilized government hospital facilities at a “meager cost” for medical training, some benefits should be passed on to students by reducing tuition fees.

While deciding the fee structure, the average expenses of medical colleges over the last five years must be considered, and not merely last year’s (2003-2004) expenses, the Jagirdar Committee has been requested. It has also been suggested that an average of fees collected over the last five years should be taken by the committee to calculate the cost per student.

Among other things, the PAMS would also like the state government to double the number of seats in government medical colleges claiming that there is sufficient infrastructure to do this.

It has also called for private medical colleges to be run on a no profit-no loss basis, citing a Supreme Court directive, which mentioned that there should not be any profiteering since education is not an industry.