Rs 11.5 lakh/year median fee in private medical colleges, says expert body

In a first such survey, an expert group under National Medical Commission, the apex medical regulator, has found that the median for fees of deemed universities is Rs 21 lakh a year, almost double of the median for fees of private medical colleges at Rs 11.5 lakh a year. Median is the middle number in an ascending or descending list of numbers.

There are nearly 96,000 MBBS seats in the country for 2023, of which nearly half are in the private sector (private medical colleges and deemed universities).

The information made available to Parliament in a written reply by Dr Subhas Sarkar, Minister of State for Education, showed that the median fee for seats under management quota was the same as that for normal seats in private colleges as well as deemed universities.

For seats under NRI quota (reserved for NRIs, Overseas Citizens of India, Persons of Indian Origin or those with an NRI sponsor living outside India), the median fee was more than double that for normal seats at Rs 24 lakhs a year in private medical colleges.

The median fees for NRI quota seats at deemed universities was 50 per cent higher than that for normal seats at Rs 31 lakh a year.

As for government quota seats – seats in private colleges earmarked by state governments with usually lower fees and higher qualifying ranks, the cost is one-sixth the normal fees in the private colleges and one-tenth the normal fees at deemed university, according to the reply.

The expert group can guide the fee regulatory authorities across the country there are 27 fee regulatory committees from each of the states and 70 committees from each of the deemed universities.