The Karnataka state government has increased the medical and dental fees in private colleges by 15% for the 2019-2010 academic year. The hike will be applicable to all the seats, including government quota seats in the private colleges.
According to the government decision, the government seat in a private college would cost Rs 1,11,959 per year against the previous fees Rs 97,350. In dental colleges, the fees will be ₹72,484 for government quota seats against last year’s fees Rs 63,030. As per the latest decision, the fee for institutional quota medical seats has gone up from Rs 6,83,100 to Rs 7,85,565. The same for dental courses is Rs 5,32,818 from Rs 4,63,320.
The state government has decided to hike the fees at a meeting held by the Medical Education department with the representatives of various private medical colleges, linguistic and religious minority institutions and deemed-to-be and private medical universities in Bengaluru.
The Karnataka professional colleges and the Karnataka Religious and Linguistic Minority Professional Colleges’ Association were demanding 20% and 25% hike respectively.
M R Jayaram, the chairperson of the Karnataka Professional Colleges Foundation, said, “We had asked the government for 25% hike. But the government agreed to increase it by 15%. As the admission process needs to commence in the next four days and in the interest of students, we did not want to drag it further and agreed for a 15% hike.”
Though the government has increased the fees in private colleges, the fees in the government medical and dental colleges will remain the same at ₹50,000 and ₹40,000 respectively.

Source: Deccan Herald, The Hindu.
Image: India Today

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