Few takers for pricey PG medical NRI seats
Hemali.Chhapia@timesgroup.com
Mumbai:
08.05.2018
Prohibitively expensive NRI quota seats for postgraduate medical courses are not finding many takers across India. Fees being the highest in Maharashtra and Karnataka, just about 3%-5% of such seats have been filled up in the two states.
Data from several states shows that despite setting a flat rate or in some cases, lowering the fee to the same level as for management quota candidates, colleges are finding it difficult to fill their 15% NRI quota. Barring Kerala—where most NRI seats have been snapped up — states have been wooing candidates to join their colleges, sometimes even negotiating tuition rates for NRI seats.
“Most colleges across India, including deemed universities, are finding it difficult to get NRI candidates for their seats,” said head of the Directorate of Medical Education, Dr Praveen Shingare. “So they are looking for Indian candidates who can be sponsored by NRI relatives,” he added.
In most states, private colleges are allowed to follow a three-tier system in which seats are divided into merit, management, and NRI categories. Candidates are charged more for NRI seats in a bid to cross-subsidise education for the meritorious. And until 2016-17, the demand for NRI seats was so high they would be secretly auctioned off in many cases.
Now with the line of claimants thinning, in most states, colleges use their liberty to convert NRI seats to management quota (where fees are less) or surrender them to the agency in charge of regulating admissions, to enrol students at the same rate as merit seats.
In Bihar, not a single NRI seat has seen takers despite the fact that fees are same as those for management quota. Odisha has only one college and it has no NRI quota, merely merit seats and management seats. In Kerala, vacant NRI seats are being converted to merit seats and filled up by the commissioner of entrance exam. And in Karnataka, of 350 NRI seats in PG medical in 2017-18, only130 seats were filled. The rest were later shifted to the management category.
“In Karnataka, the fee structure of PG medical seats has gone up by 15% in 2018-19, compared to the previous year,” said Dr S Sacchidananda, director of Medical Education, government of Karnataka. So, an NRI PG seat in orthopaedics goes for ₹50 lakh, 10 times more compared to the ₹5 lakh charged for a merit seat in private colleges.
Hemali.Chhapia@timesgroup.com
Mumbai:
08.05.2018
Prohibitively expensive NRI quota seats for postgraduate medical courses are not finding many takers across India. Fees being the highest in Maharashtra and Karnataka, just about 3%-5% of such seats have been filled up in the two states.
Data from several states shows that despite setting a flat rate or in some cases, lowering the fee to the same level as for management quota candidates, colleges are finding it difficult to fill their 15% NRI quota. Barring Kerala—where most NRI seats have been snapped up — states have been wooing candidates to join their colleges, sometimes even negotiating tuition rates for NRI seats.
“Most colleges across India, including deemed universities, are finding it difficult to get NRI candidates for their seats,” said head of the Directorate of Medical Education, Dr Praveen Shingare. “So they are looking for Indian candidates who can be sponsored by NRI relatives,” he added.
In most states, private colleges are allowed to follow a three-tier system in which seats are divided into merit, management, and NRI categories. Candidates are charged more for NRI seats in a bid to cross-subsidise education for the meritorious. And until 2016-17, the demand for NRI seats was so high they would be secretly auctioned off in many cases.
Now with the line of claimants thinning, in most states, colleges use their liberty to convert NRI seats to management quota (where fees are less) or surrender them to the agency in charge of regulating admissions, to enrol students at the same rate as merit seats.
In Bihar, not a single NRI seat has seen takers despite the fact that fees are same as those for management quota. Odisha has only one college and it has no NRI quota, merely merit seats and management seats. In Kerala, vacant NRI seats are being converted to merit seats and filled up by the commissioner of entrance exam. And in Karnataka, of 350 NRI seats in PG medical in 2017-18, only130 seats were filled. The rest were later shifted to the management category.
“In Karnataka, the fee structure of PG medical seats has gone up by 15% in 2018-19, compared to the previous year,” said Dr S Sacchidananda, director of Medical Education, government of Karnataka. So, an NRI PG seat in orthopaedics goes for ₹50 lakh, 10 times more compared to the ₹5 lakh charged for a merit seat in private colleges.
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