Thiruvananthapuram: The admission supervisory committee headed by Justice J.M. James has postponed its meeting to discuss the next course of action on the allotment process to self-financing medical colleges. Justice James will wait till the self-financing medical managements and the government make their stands clear. The managements said that they did not want any confrontation with the government and urged it to withdraw the order taking over the admission to all medical seats. They were planning to approach the Kerala High Court in this regard.
Sources said that as per the agreement, the fees for both the government and management quotas was fixed at Rs 4 lakh for BDS courses. However, students admitted to 15 per cent seats in NRI quota would have to pay Rs 5.75 lakh and Rs 4 lakh as interest-free deposit. Of the other seats, 10 per cent students in BPL category would get a scholarship and they would have to pay only Rs 50,000 for BDS admissions.
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Ramesh Chennithala told reporters here that the LDF government’s hasty decision had caused much confusion. He said the previous UDF government’s decision to have 50:50 ratio should be followed. “Now the self-financing colleges would make admission to all seats from the NEET list on their own if the government insisted on conducting common counselling for medical seats. When the central government held talks on the issue it was only Kerala and Tamil Nadu which rejected it,” said Mr Chennithala.
He claimed that Karnataka government which had earlier agreed to implement the policy later changed it. With the Kerala government deciding to take over the admission to all the 100 medical seats, poor students will not get medical admissions, he said. The fee structure for self-financing medical colleges has also not been finalised yet. Sources said that the KPMCA was ready to sign an agreement if the government agreed on uniform fee structure. The private self-financing medical colleges had a multi-layer fee structure last year.
