NMC issues guidelines for fixing MBBS, PG medical fees in private, deemed to be universities

NEW DELHI: The National Medial Commission (NMC) has issued guidelines for the determination of fees and all other charges in respect of 50% of seats in the MBBS and PG medical courses at private, deemed to be universities, governed under the NMC Act, 2019.

An expert committee constituted by the NMC recommended a total of 26 broad guidelines for fixing fees at the private medical colleges and deemed to be universities, which were uploaded in the “NMC website as on 25.05.2021 for inviting public comments”.

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The medical commission said in its latest notice that the committee examined 1800 responses before submitting the revised draft regulation. These recommendations were accepted by the NMC on December 29, 2021.

As per the revised guidelines, the NMC has directed institutions to not charge any capitation fees in any form. “For determination of fees for MBBS, PG courses, it needs to be ensured that the principal of education being “not-for-profit” is strictly adhered to…no excessive expenses and exorbitant profit component should be allowed to be added in the fees,” it said.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic in the last financial year, most colleges had suspended physical classes. While some expensed such as hostel maintenance, mess expenses and others directly related to students have decreased. On the other hand, hospital running expenditure, salaries, overtime allowance has increased.

Therefore, the NMC has asked the “State Fee Regulatory Authority may consider the average audited financial result of the previous three years, with appropriate inflation adjustment”.

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The NMC also gave options to fix fees for students. “The fees can be fixed for a block of three years or on a year to year basis,” it said. However, “the fees fixed for a student joining in a college in a particular year should remain the same for the entire duration of his study in the college, subject to inflation adjustment, as considered appropriate for the state fee regulatory authority”.

Further listing the guidelines, the NMC said that all the hospital expenses should not be included in computing the cost for providing medical education.

Salaries of the teaching and non-teaching staff should be taken into account in determining the fees for medical education.

The guidelines further stated that assets created or purchased from any grant, aid, donation etc received by any private medical college should not be accounted for while determining the fees.

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