MUMBAI: The stalemate between the
state government and
private colleges has only worsened as managements have refused to part with any seat for this year’s
post-graduate admission. Private
medical colleges that want to charge rates on par with NRI fees to all students under the management quota have informed the government that if the state does not relent, admissions will not take place this year for a single seat of the 400 they have in their institutes.
The Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER), on its part, has decided to postpone release of the selection list by a day for all institutes across the state. While the
DMER has informed the CET commissioner that it should go ahead with admissions without private colleges, the issue needs to be first discussed with the minister on Thursday.
“Private
colleges have decided to keep all their
seats vacant as their demand has not been met. They don’t want the government to carry out admission for any of their 400 seats,” said DMER head Dr Praveen Shingare. “I gave them a solution and told them to allow us to carry out the admissions for 50% merit quota and 15% NRI seats but they have rejected that idea,” Shingare added. If the matter is not resolved, it would amount to a historic turn of events as private colleges across Maharashtra will not admit a fresh batch.
Private college managements met on Wednesday to discuss the matter. This year, the Fee Regulating Authority (FRA) has stipulated a three-tier structure under which a college can charge NRI quota (15%) students up to five times the fees of merit students while management (35%) quota students can be charged up to three times. Last year, colleges charged management quota students three times the fee of merit students. After the introduction of NEET, private colleges lost the right to conduct their admission. So if DMER does not include the seats in their admission process, these will remain vacant. “We are not interested in running sub-standard colleges. If FRA does not allow us to charge higher fees, we cannot provide excellence,” said Kamal Kishore Kadam, president, Association of Managements of Unaided Private Medical and Dental Colleges.
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