With no respite from exorbitant deposits or caution money charged by medical colleges despite earlier pleas to the state Fee Regulating Authority (FRA), medical aspirants have once again knocked on the regulator’s door.
Around 40 students from the city who are seeking admission to the MBBS in the state have submitted a memorandum seeking a limit on the refundable caution money, which they would be asked to pay at the time of admission. With the choice-filling process for the first round of undergraduate medical admissions concluding on Thursday, the aspirants are anxious to get a favourable decision from the authorities before they submit the list of their preferred institutes.
The students, especially those from marginalised sections, have been demanding a cap on the caution money amount, which is charged under various heads such as hostel, mess, library, gymkhana and laboratory ostensibly to make up for any loss or damage to college property and is is given back to students only after completion of their course. The deposit fee for MBBS ranges anywhere between Rs30,000 and Rs5 lakh, with most of the colleges charging around Rs2-3 lakh.
A representation on the issue was made to FRA last year by Kawish, a city-based educational organisation, following which the regulator asked the colleges to declare the details about the deposit money they charge and the pending refunds while seeking revision of their tuition fees for 2024-25. The authority had also requested the commissioner of medical education to suggest an amount to be fixed as caution money, but the final decision on the issue is yet to be reached.
"While the aspirants belonging to scheduled caste (SC), scheduled tribe (ST) and Vimukta Jati/Nomadic Tribe (VJ/NT) categories aren’t charged any tuition fees, they are still required to pay the entire deposit money amount running into lakhs before their admission is confirmed. This leads to many students not seeking admission to these institutes, thereby limiting the number of opportunities available to them. We hope that the authorities will look into this issue with the sincerity and urgency it deserves,” said Najmuddin Shaikh, a career counsellor from Kawish.
According to an FRA member, the issue will be discussed by the authority today. “We are trying to understand the issue. Some solutions, such as staggering the caution money amount over the entire duration of MBBS programme, can be provided,” said the member.
Like all the other professional programmes, the fees for medical courses are decided by FRA after considering the college’s annual expenditure on providing education. However, as FRA sanctions fees under only two heads – tuition fee and development fee, the deposit money has so far remained unregulated.
However, an office memorandum issued in 2022 by the National Medical Commission (NMC) says that the colleges shouldn’t charge ‘exorbitant’ deposits. The directive also stipulates that the interest amount earned by a college on the deposit money should be taken into account while calculating the institute’s expenses and provides for the fee regulator to put a cap on the deposit amount across colleges.
Last year, 13 aspirants had moved the Aurangabad Bench of Bombay High Court seeking a ceiling on the caution money. However, the plea was dismissed as HC asked the students to first exhaust other available forums before approaching the court. The court also ruled that the petitioners lacked the locus as they hadn't been allotted any seat at that moment.
