NMC fee plan for pvt med seats could face challenges

NMC fee plan for pvt med seats could face challenges

TNN | Feb 28, 2022, 07.10 AM IST

The National Medical Commission's (NMC) decision that fees for 50% of seats in all private medical colleges, including deemed universities, should match those in government colleges in the respective states seems unlikely to be implemented this academic year and could face challenges even further down the line.

The decision would have added nearly 22,000 seats to those with relatively affordable fees. However, it is not being implemented for the academic year for which counselling is ongoing as the NMC communication came out too late for it to be implemented, argued officials from many states and colleges. The NMC office memorandum (OM) on fee regulation was dated February 3 while registration for the first round of counselling started on January 19. Several states had issued notifications on fees by end of 2020.

Private college representatives also argue that NMC does not have the power to regulate their fees as the NMC Act only allows it to "frame guidelines for determination of fees and all other charges in respect of 50% of seats in private medical institutions and deemed to be universities" governed under the Act. That raises prospect of the OM being challenged and getting embroiled in litigation.

The nearly 22,000 fresh seats that would become more affordable would have taken the total number of relatively affordable seats to over 68,000 or about three-fourths of the 90,675 MBBS seats currently available. While many states already have 50% of MBBS seats in private colleges set aside for government quota, the fees for them are the same as in government colleges only in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. In most states, government quota seats in private colleges cost double or even several times what is charged in government colleges, though much less than management and NRI quota seats.

States like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Rajasthan and Kerala do not have a 50% government quota in private colleges. In such states, about 5,800 seats will come under fee control if and when the NMC decision is implemented. Another 4,000 seats in 44 private deemed university colleges would also have to match government college fees. Deemed university medical colleges are under the jurisdiction of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and usually have had no state government quota. NMC's decision would impact deemed university medical colleges, 38 out of the 45 of them being in Maharashtra (12), Tamil Nadu (11), Karnataka (11), and Pondicherry (4).

The NMC's OM not only stipulates fees equivalent to that of government medical colleges for 50% of the seats, it also says that fees for the remaining 50% in deemed universities would be fixed according to the detailed guidelines laid down in the OM on how to calculate fees for private colleges. If implemented, private deemed universities would be coming under the ambit of state fee regulatory authorities for the first time.

Deemed universities have been challenging the authority of state fee regulatory authorities to fix their fees for several years, arguing that they come under the UGC and not under state governments. The UGC itself has been threatening to regulate fees in deemed universities for over a decade. Finally, on court directions, the committee appointed by the UGC to fix fees for deemed university medical colleges had put out a draft of the fee regulation rules by end-2019. By then, the NMC Act was passed by Parliament and the new commission took charge in September 2020.

An expert on regulatory issues related to medical colleges pointed out that according to the NMC Act it could only frame guidelines for 50% of seats and had no jurisdiction over the remaining 50%. "If it is stating that 50% of the seats will have fees equivalent to government medical colleges, how can it regulate the remaining 50% seats?" he asked. He added that NMC's OM did not have the force of law without notification in the gazette.

NMC's OM is issued under section 10 of the NMC Act pertaining to powers of the commission which allows for only framing of guidelines on fee fixation. "The OM is not issued under section 56, which pertains to regulations. Section 56 has a detailed list of the areas for which the commission can frame regulations and fees is not listed there. This loophole was pointed out to the government when the NMC Act was framed, but the government did not make the necessary changes that would have given the commission the power to regulate fees in medical colleges. The NMC can regulate the fees only if the NMC Act is amended to include fees in the list of areas identified for regulation," said an advisor to several private medical colleges.

Under the circumstances, it remains to be seen whether the OM will get mired in court cases, where most earlier attempts at fee regulation ended up.