The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : COMED-K not to subsidise fee for SC, ST, OBC students

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, May 08, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

COMED-K not to subsidise fee for SC, ST, OBC students

Rasheed Kappan

New Bill is silent on the issue; consortium drops earlier plan

BANGALORE: The Government, while setting aside 50 per cent of the seats in all professional colleges for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) students in the new Karnataka Professional Education Bill, did not spell out who will subsidise the fee for this quota.

Concluding that the Government will take up this burden, the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMED-K) has now given up its earlier plan to subsidise 25 per cent of seats in its member colleges for weaker sections of society.

As proof of the Government's intention to subsidise the undergraduate Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students, the consortium refers to a statement by a Health and Family Welfare Department official that the Government proposed to allocate Rs. 5 crore towards subsidy for postgraduate medical candidates admitted through the government quota.

In August last, the Karnataka Private Medical and Dental Colleges Association announced that it would tie up with private industries to offer 25 per cent seats in each member college at a subsidised cost for meritorious students from weaker sections of society.

COMED-K chairman M.R. Jayaram had explained that the subsidised fee would be equal to the one charged for a free seat in government colleges.

The 25 per cent seats were to be earmarked for students from economically weak families, particularly from Kannada-medium schools in rural areas and for students belonging to Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe categories.

It was also estimated that the subsidised fee would in the range of Rs. 36,000 for an MBBS seat.

Changed circumstances

However, with the new Bill and the changed circumstances, the private college managements have declared that the scheme is no longer valid.

"The proposal was not even discussed by the Government. We proposed the scheme with the hope that there would be a uniform fee structure, and that the Fee Fixation Committee would fix reasonable fee.

"But that was not the case, and a corpus could not be created. There could not have been a cross-subsidy," explained S. Kumar, executive secretary of COMED-K, the admission wing of the private managements.

Full fee

If the Government did not offer the subsidy, the managements would charge the full fee for all the candidates, including reserved category and general merit, said R.L. Jalappa, a key member of COMED-K. "No fee, no admission. We will charge a common fee, according to the court's decision," he said.

Also ruled out was any plan for the managements to take up the fee burden and the Government reimbursing it.

"We have learnt from experience. The Government still owes us about Rs. 8 crore to 10 crore for having subsidised the fee for two years and three years in some colleges. There is no question of such an agreement this year," said Mr. Jalappa.

Terming the fees fixed by the Rangavittalachar panel as low, he wondered why the Government reduced the NRI quota from 15 per cent as fixed by the Union Government.

"The State has earmarked only 15 per cent of the 50 per cent unreserved seats for NRIs. The Union Government had set the limit as 15 per cent of the 100 per cent. Besides, they have defined NRI quota as seats for students who passed their qualifying examination outside the country and whose parents resided outside," he said.

The managements were unwilling to accept the Government's contention that NRI quota could be used as a cross-subsidising mechanism. The reason: only a select few colleges had the capacity to attract NRI students, and the concept of cross-subsidy was out.

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