With the rising rate of corruption with the college fees, especially in the private medical colleges, the administration is working to bringing in transparency to the same. The Fees Regulating Authority (FRA) has turned down the proposition made by the private medical colleges to exclude the excess fees taken from the NRI as well as the management quota students.

The same is believed to bring forth better clarifications, transparency and even help the students get a waiver from the unjust fees that they pay from time and time. The involved authorities from FRA witnessed that allowing these colleges to acquire four or five times the actual fees without including them in the annual income led to immense profiteering.

In addition to that, FRA also advised to include the stipends that are paid to the resident doctors in both the medical and dental college as part of their overall expenditure. For deciding the fees for the academic session of 2020-21, FRA is going to be excluding the college stipends from the overall expenses and bring it under the hospital’s list.

This is set to help the meritorious students secure seats in the private medical colleges at a very amount of the fees.

During their observation through this, FRA witnessed that irrespective of whether it is a stipend or a salary, the services all are used for the beneficiary of the hospital. This makes it a rightly adjustment to be included in the overall hospital expenditure.

Ravindra Dahad, an FRA member, in an issued a statement saying, “Though we consider hospital expenses too while deciding the fee structure, there is a cap. Students’ services are used for hospitals, so there is no reason for including it as college’s expenditure. If we account for it as a college expense, fees are bound to go up.”

The Association of Managements of Unaided Private Medical and Dental Colleges (AMUPMDC) has also suggested some of the effective changes in the process of the fee regulation back in September. The same was presented before FRA on September 04th, but the same was finally passed in a directive on Wednesday.

Apart from that, the authorities also didn’t allow the 15% blanket hike on the notional basis. They said that the blanket rise of 15% without the consideration of the actual expenditure will not have impacts on the overall regulation of the fees and the problem associated with unsolicited profiteering. The same can’t necessarily be allowed anymore.

One of the members from the AMUPMDC said that the regular fees that are collected from the students are used for the salaries of the professors along with the recurring expenses of the college. They further emphasised saying that the excess fees that they charged from NRI students were meant for the needs of the college development. Now that FRA has included the same under the income, it is going to be difficult for them to sustain the increased costs.

The one demand made by the officials under the private medical colleges is to allow interest on the development of colleges. FRA clarified that this can be accepted if the college can successfully provide with a clear account of the development fees collected from the students along with the proof of the installation and acquirement of the extra equipment for the college.

By Somapika Dutta