PATNA: The Bihar cabinet on Friday approved a a substantial hike in tuition fees at the postgraduate and super-speciality level in government medical colleges, making the fee structure uniform across all its state-run medical colleges at the graduate, post-graduate (PG) and super-speciality levels, while also endorsing the same fee for 50% students in private medical colleges, said government officials familiar with the matter.
“The new fee structure will come into effect from this academic session itself,” said Brijesh Mehrotra, Bihar’s additional chief secretary, cabinet coordination.
The one-time tuition fee was as low as ₹500 for the full three-year duration of postgraduate and super-speciality courses at the Patna Medical College Hospital (PMCH) and the Darbhanga Medical College Hospital (DMCH), the two oldest medical colleges in Bihar. This will now change to ₹9,000 per year, a hike of 5300% for the full duration of the two three-year courses.
In addition, PG students will also have to pay a one-time admission fee of ₹4,000 for the three-year PG degree course, ₹2,000 for the two-year PG diploma course, and ₹5,000 for the three-year super-speciality course. Presently, the admission fee for PG degree and diploma course was ₹20 at DMCH, and the same was included in the tuition fee at the PMCH.
Similarly, at the undergraduate level, the tuition fee, which is presently as low as ₹6,000 in the first, third, and fourth years at the DMCH and ₹12,000 in the second year, is also set to be uniform at ₹9,000 per annum for the four-and-a-half-year MBBS course.
At PMCH, the fee at the MBBS level is ₹6,100 in the first year, ₹6,200 each in the second and third years, and ₹3,200 in the fourth year.
Different state-run medical colleges had their own fee structure.
In addition, students at the undergraduate level will also have to pay a one-time admission fee and caution money of ₹1,000 and ₹10,000 respectively. Presently, the one-time caution money was as low as ₹1,000. Electricity charge, which was as low as ₹540 per year at DMCH was increased to ₹1,200. The annual hostel fee, both for undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate students has been made uniform at ₹12,000 per annum, as against the prevailing rate of ₹7,200 for UG students and ₹12,000 for PG students at PMCH. At the DMCH, the existing hostel fee was ₹12,000 per year for UG and PG students.
The UG students will also have to pay ₹500 per year towards magazine society, in addition to a one-time fee of ₹2,000 for college activity, ₹5,000 for student welfare fund, and ₹100 as student union fund, most of which were non-existent now.
The decision will affect 10 government-run medical colleges, and at least six existing private medical colleges in Bihar.
Efforts to reach senior officers in the state health department proved futile.