Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Ambiguity over fee structure at Pariyaram medical college

J. Ajith Kumar

Fate of students who had undergone CAP 'uncertain'

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: With the deadline for exercising higher order options for admission to the professional courses 2005 ending on Monday, uncertainty prevails over the fate of the students who had undergone the Centralised Allotment Process (CAP) for medical seats.

Even though the State Government had announced on July 10 that the students getting admission to the cooperative professional colleges under the merit quota need pay only the fees applicable to government colleges, a decision is yet to be taken on the fees to be paid by those who had already been allotted seats in the first round of the CAP.

Well before this announcement was made, the seats for the MBBS and B.Sc. Nursing courses in the merit quota, including those in the medical and nursing colleges at Pariyaram, had already been exhausted under the then prevailing higher fee structure. The Government had, on July 10, declared that a decision on such students would be taken within a couple of days. However, no action has been forthcoming in this regard, it has been pointed out.

The Director of the Academy of Medical Sciences at Pariyaram, had on July 27, issued an order to the effect that the tuition fee for merit seats for candidates admitted to the MBBS, BDS, B.Pharm. and B.Sc. Nursing courses at the Pariyaram college for the year 2005-2006, will be the same as that fixed for government colleges.

In the case of the other self-financing medical colleges in the cooperative sector, the one at Ernakulam, managed by the Cooperative Academy of Professional Education (CAPE) too, a similar order had been issued on July 19.

However, it is only the tuition fee in these colleges (Rs.9,625 for MBBS and BDS and Rs.6,490 for both B.Pharm. and B.Sc. Nursing) that has been equated with the fee structure in the government colleges, whereas the other components like caution deposit, admission fees and the like have not been brought on a par with those in the government colleges.

In the first round of the CAP held in the first week of July, the fee of Rs.1,13,000 was still in force for the MBBS course and Rs.49,400 for the B.Sc. Nursing course in the Pariyaram medical and nursing colleges respectively.

There are candidates who had taken seats in the Amala Medical College at Thrissur, where the same fee structure is still applicable, even when seats were lying vacant at the Pariyaram college. The fee in both the colleges then was the same. There is no option facility for a change in college, in the case of such students.

Similarly, even students who would have otherwise preferred the Pariyaram college might have taken seats in the medical college at Alappuzha on account of the low fee structure prevailing in the latter and owing to their inability to pay the higher fee that existed in the former during the allotment process.

There are also students who were forced to take seats in courses other than MBBS in the government colleges even when medical seats were available at Pariyaram, again on account of their inability to pay Rs.1,13,000.

All such candidates have been denied MBBS seats, despite their eligibility and the government is yet to address their grievances in this regard, even 20 days after the decision on making the lower fee structure applicable to the Pariyaram medical college, and more importantly even as the last date for exercising options has arrived.

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