The Department of Medical Education and private medical college managements are yet to sign the consensual agreement on fee structure and seat-sharing formula for academic year 2010-11. Although the medical education minister and officials of the medical education directorate have been mentioning in various fora that the seat-sharing formula and the fee structure would remain the same as that of last year, the agreement has not been signed.
The reason? Both the stakeholders are looking into the legal aspects of the components of the agreement. Although the private medical college managements have agreed in principle to retain the fee structure and seat matrix, the implications of a legal challenge by students would be unwelcome to the managements.
According to Justice V Gopala Gowda’s judgement, a fee determination committee has to be constituted to arrive at a common fee which would dispel disparities in the fee structure of various categories. The Medical Education Department’s apathy towards constituting the fee determination committee has landed both the students and the managements in a soup.
Without the fee fixation committee in place, students can challenge the fee structure based on the SC judgement. However, to avoid the legal challenge, the government is ensuring that all steps are taken. According to an official from the Medical Education Department, the components of the consensual agreement are being reviewed by the Law Department.
However, the consensual agreement between the government and the private college managements also includes the PG medical courses fee structure and the seat-sharing matrix. The PG courses seat selection and counselling by the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences and Consortium of Medical Engineering and Dental colleges of Karnataka too have been scheduled for April first week. A COMEDK member said that without the agreement and its details, there is no clarity on the number of seats and fee structure for PG medical courses.
