Several private medical and dental colleges have asked students to produce a bank guarantee for their fees, not just for one year but for all four-and-a-half-years.
This move is to pre-empt students from dropping midway. It also guarantees that students will be able to pay their fees, which runs into lakhs of rupees every year. The fact that some colleges were asking students to furnish documents came to the notice of the admission overseeing committee’s chairman Anand Byrareddy, who received a tip off that a college in Shivamogga was asking for a bank guarantee. He has sought a report from the college.
Students, too, are stunned by this development. A student, who has secured a seat in a Davangere private medical college, said: “I have obtained a seat under the private quota and it costs ₹6.32 lakh for one year, but furnishing a bank guarantee for ₹22 lakh is not within my means.”
Several private medical colleges The Hindu spoke to said that a few colleges had started this practice for private seats as well as NRI and the 5% management quota seats. “Earlier, there was a concept of paying the entire course fees as we would do the admissions ourselves. But now, as the admission process is centralised after the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, we cannot ask students to pay the entire fee. As private medical colleges are self-financed, we do not have any way out,” said an official of a deemed university. Deemed university admissions are done by the Directorate General of Health Sciences.
M.K. Ramesh, in-charge Vice-Chancellor, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), said that the university was against this practice. “All students may not be in a position to give bank guarantee. So colleges should not impose this on students,” he said.
Medical Education Minister Sharanprakash Patil said the department had sought a legal opinion and the law department had told that the students can be asked to furnish a bank guarantee but could not keep the documents. He said that the department would, however, examine the time frame within which students were asked to produce bank guarantee.