MBBS fees remain unchanged in many medical colleges, only a handful hike it by ₹1 lakh

Mumbai MBBS aspirants in the state have a reason to cheer as many private unaided medical institutes in the state this year have opted not to hike their annual fees.

Information shared by the Maharashtra Fee Regulating Authority (FRA) shows, that except for a handful of institutes that have increased their fees by ₹50,000 to 1 lakh, most colleges have decided to continue with what they were charging last year.

However, the FRA is yet to declare the fee structure for some medical colleges, including Vedantaa Institute of Medical Sciences, Palghar and ACPM, Dhule.

Surprisingly, Prakash Institute of Medical Sciences and Research, Sangli, has reduced its fee by almost 50 per cent this year.

“Never before have we witnessed a case where annual fees of a medical institute were reduced by 50 per cent. We only hope the FRA has not made an error while sharing this information on their website because any error will leave the students confused,” said Brijesh Sutaria, a parent.

He added that despite FRA releasing the approved fee structure, students should wait and check the final fee structure on the websites of individual colleges before opting for their preferred college and course.

Last year, the overall hike in fees across several private MBBS institutes in Maharashtra was between ₹2 to 10 lakhs per annum. Many colleges had attributed the fee hike to deficit in hospital revenue during the pandemic.

“Most medical institutes are still running in deficit, but admissions have already been delayed by a few weeks and the process of getting approval for fee-hike is time consuming. The institutes have decided to hike fees only in the next academic year,” said the dean of a private medical college in Nashik.

As per information shared by FRA, the annual fees at KJ Somaiya Medical College in Mumbai and NKP Salve Institute of Medical Sciences in Nagpur have gone up by around ₹1 lakh, while Pune’s Kashibai Navale Medical College have increased it by less than ₹30,000 annually.

Parents and MBBS aspirants, however, are worried about Vedanta Institute of Medical Sciences, Palghar, which for years have charged the highest fees. Last year, fees at Vedanta was ₹13.65 lakh. Parents are worried the institute might hike it further up this year. Clarity from FRA is still awaited.

Meanwhile, in a separate meeting held at the state FRA office last week, officials decided to fix the ad-hoc fees for new courses in MBBS or MD/MS in 2022-23 academic at ₹7.5 lakh and ₹10.5 lakh, respectively.

“The decision was taken after taking into consideration the fees declared for academic years 2020-21 and 2021-22 by unaided education institutes. It was decided to finalise this amount for new courses in 2022-23,” stated the minutes of the meeting made public by the authority. The ad-hoc fees can be charged by the institutes only after FRA approves the final fee.