Chief Minister N. Rangasamy on Wednesday announced in the Assembly that a legislation would be soon brought in to keep a tab on private medical colleges and to ensure that they adhered to the conditions on collection of tuition fees from students who were joining under Government quota.
Replying to representations made by the opposition Congress, AIADMK and DMK Legislators during Question Hour, Mr. Rangasamy said that he was fully aware of the grievances of students and he had asked officials to prepare at the earliest a legislation to prevent the colleges from violating the provisions of conditions on which they were allowed to start the colleges.
He said that the fees committee had fixed Rs.2.25 lakh for each student joining the private medical colleges under Government quota through the Centralised Admission Committee (CENTAC). Asserting that there should be no excess collection of fees he said that the government was firm that the 50 percent quota should be strictly followed by the colleges. There should be a statutory base and authority to insist this and a legislation would be brought to restrain private medical colleges from going their own way.
Earlier raising the issue, AIADMK Deputy Legislature Leader A. Anbalagan said that instances of private medical colleges claiming to be Deemed Universities and charging Rs.8 lakhs per student to study MBBS had come to cause an embarrassing situation.
He said that there were seven medical colleges in the Union Territory and four of them were putting up a defence from their status as Deemed Universities to avoid allotting 50 percent of seats. The government should immediately take action against these institutions, he said.
Leader of Opposition V. Vaithilingam and Congress MLA Theni C. Jayakumar said the management were permitted to start the colleges through an affidavit stipulating they should earmark 50 percent of the total seats to government sponsored candidates. But this condition was breached by the colleges. The government should therefore declare that all seats available should be earmarked for local students, Mr. Vaithilingam said.
