Brahm Mohindra, sitting Congress legislator and a former Cabinet Minister for Research and Medical Education, here today lamented the steep hike in the fee in medical colleges in Punjab without proper notice and allowing admission to a large number of students from other states by the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences.
In a statement here, Brahm Mohindra lamented that the Punjab government had not opened any new Medical College during the last 40 years. The State government even missed a one time opportunity provided by Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to increase 100 MBBS seats each for the State run Medical Colleges for the session 2013-14.
He said that many South Indian States had encashed this one time opportunity for increasing seats but the state government failed in this regard. Now the poor people can’t even think of putting their wards in medical stream and medical education had become a pipe dream for the middle class students.Brahm Mohindra said that in case the government was serious about bringing about an improvement in the field of medical education in the state, a high-powered committee under the chairmanship of Punjab Chief Minister should be constituted because the present set up was incapable of handling this important sector vital for reinforcement of the healthcare system in the state of Punjab.
Mohindra said the MBBS course aspirants in Punjab this year were feeling cheated as the annual fee structure as mentioned in the prospectus for the 2013 admission session issued by the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot clearly stated that the fee in private colleges would be Rs 1.5 lakh for government quota seats and Rs 4 lakh per year for management quota seats. He alleged that violating all norms, the Punjab government had hiked this fee to Rs 2 lakh and Rs 6 lakh per year without any prior notice.
In addition to this compulsory hostel charges of Rs 1.5 lakh per year were also being charged from the admitted students. Parents were not given any time to rethink or explore some other option so that those who could not pay this hefty fee of Rs 8 lakh per year so that they could plan some other career for their wards.
Elaborating on the issue, Mohindra said counseling for MBBS was started on August 2, 2013 by the Baba Farid University whereas information about fee hike was put on the website of the university only on August 1, 2013 late evening. During counseling, the parents were forced to pay fee according to the revised fee structure and against the prospectus guidelines.
The Medical Council of India and the Supreme Court guidelines for holding first counseling on June 15 and the second counseling on august 5 each year were not adhered to. The first counseling was deliberately delayed for one and a half months so as to help the private medical colleges to get the fee hike notified by the government before admissions.
He said this action of the State government was bad as per law since the fee structure given in the mandatory notification of June 5, 2013 was deliberately enhanced to help private medical colleges in the state just a day before the start of the counseling. As a double blow, the number of MBBS seats was considerably reduced on the day of the counseling.
As mentioned in the prospectus, the MBBS seats were around 1100 whereas the first counseling was conducted for only 800 MBBS seats. Adding salt to the injury a large number of candidates from states other than Punjab were admitted whereas the BFUHS Faridkot is supposed to conduct counseling for candidates who are bonafide residents of Punjab. During counseling many parents raised a hue and cry in this regard and asked the BFUHS to take a mandatory declaration from the parents and the candidates that they had not attended counseling in any other state except CBSE centralized counseling, but their pleas were ignored. The candidates who burnt midnight oil to enter medical colleges in the State of Punjab have fraudulently been deprived of their legitimate right.
Mohindra said the Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), Jalandhar, was not given approval by the MCI to admit students in the MBBS course this year. The PIMS was established by the Punjab government on AIIMS lines and a huge amount of money was spent to develop infrastructure. It is situated on prime location in the heart of Jalandhar city. The land cost alone runs into several thousand crores. For obvious reasons, it was given to private parties at throwaway price. Instead of giving cheap medical education and healthcare facilities to the people, the PIMS has merely become money making culture for bigwigs. It was never managed as per MCI guidelines and poor students of the State who cannot afford costly medical education lost an opportunity to get admission here.It is important to mention here that there is a provision to take back PIMS in Government control in case of urgency but the State government has virtually remained mum on this issue due to some vested interests, Mohindra alleged.