SFCs PG fees structure row still unresolved

KOCHI: Hinting that the admissions to the PG courses in self-financing medical colleges in the state also will run into rough waters, the fee regulatory committee for self-financing colleges headed by Justice P A Mohammed failed to fix the fees for these courses for 2011-13.The committee, which met here on Monday could not fix the fees as the college managements failed to provide more details sought by the former.After the managements failed to produce the required documents, the committee, which met in June had fixed the fees for post-graduate medical courses provisionally.According to the sources, it is the high fees demanded by the college managements that resulted in the stalemate. Though the managements demand huge fees, they continued to fail to produce the documents in support of their argument.Now, the committee has given four weeks’ time for the college managements to come up with the details sought by the former. The committee will modify the fees once the managements provide the explanations. The fees for various PG courses declared by the committee in June range from Rs 2 lakh to Rs 5 lakh. The provisional fees for the non-clinical subjects is Rs 2 lakh, while that for clinical subjects is Rs 5 lakh.The fees demanded by these colleges range from Rs 8 lakh to Rs 36 lakh, sources said.The Mohammed committee had sought explanation from the managements for demanding huge fees.In their reply, the college managements, which failed to cite proper reason for escalating the fees, sought more time for submitting detailed explanation.The Mohammed committee studied the fees structure prevailing in the neighbouring states, before turning down the college managements’ demand. In Karnataka, the fees fixed by the fee regulatory committee is Rs 1 lakh for non-clinical subjects and Rs 4.5 lakh for clinical subjects.The committee which met on Monday gave its nod for the agreement entered into between the state government and the Al Shifa College of Pharmacy, Perinthalmanna.The agreement was for admissions to the BSc MLT and D-Pharm courses in the college.