Reduced fees structure in quota seats unlikely

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The High Court judgment cancelling the entrance examinations conducted by the Kerala Private Medical College Managements Association (KPMCMA) for management quota seats has closed the doors on the possibility of reduced fees structure for government quota seats.The High Court on Wednesday cancelled the examination conducted on July 14 to 420 management quota seats of 11 self-financing colleges after reaching an agreement with the government.  A total of 1,218 candidates had appeared for the examination. KPMCMA secretary Abdul Jabbar told Express that a meeting of the managements’ association in Kochi on Thursday would take a decision on the further course of action in the wake of the judgment. Some members of the association are in favour of going in for an appeal against the verdict. Though the judgment was not directly connected to the government quota seats or fees, the managements are learnt to have decided not to concede to the demand for reduced fees on the ground that the colleges could not be run viably with reduced fees. The government representatives were trying to persuade the managements to make some compromise with regard to the fees structure in government quota seats.  As per the secret agreement reached between the managements and the State Government earlier, the fees for 25 per cent seats in government quota earmarked for BPL and SEBC candidates will be Rs 25,000.  For the rest of the seats in government quota, the fees will be Rs 4.5 lakh. The government will pay the fees of Rs 4.5 lakh for five per cent students admitted to the Scheduled Cast and Scheduled Tribe categories. For the 35 per cent seats in management quota seats, the fees will be Rs 4.5 lakh and Rs 5 lakh as deposit.   For the NRI quota, the fees will be Rs  9 lakh.  This was a deviation from their earlier stand that they would admit students to government quota seats with a fees of Rs 1.38 lakh. Now the managements would insist that the State Government should agree to this fees structure. In case the government did not concede to the demand, they would opt out of the agreement and collect Rs 3.5 lakh for all seats, sources said. The Kerala High Court, in an interim order, had earlier allowed five self-financing medical colleges to collect Rs 3.5 lakh as annual tuition fees for MBBS. The managements have also cited an earlier Supreme Court verdict against cross subsidisation of fees in support of their argument.