Med univ offers fee discount for NEET top-scorers

Chennai: In a first, a deemed university in Tamil Nadu is offering up to 4.5 lakh per annum as ‘discount’ in fee to MBBS/BDS students depending on their marks in NEET- 2023.

Meenakshi Medical College Hospital and Research Institute in Kancheepuram near Chennai has announced a scholarship of 4.5 lakh every year against their annual fees of 22.5 lakh for students who have scored more than 400 in NEET-2023, 3.5 lakh for students who have scores between 350 and 399, 3.5 for those who have scores between 300 and 349 and 1.5 lakh for students who have scored between 250 and 299.

For BDS courses, students get between 50,000 and 2 lakh against the annual fees of 5 lakh. Candidates who have represented the state or country in sports will get a scholarship of 2.5 lakh, the announcement said.

The management said the aim of the scholarship was to attract meritorious students and also to ensure seats do not go vacant after the first two rounds of counselling.

“I hope this is the beginning of a trend. If so, then it would be good for meritorious students,” said S Sathiyan, a banker whose son is waiting for MBBS admission this year. “On paper, the annual fee at a self-financing medical college is 13 lakh in Tamil Nadu. But students pay upto 16 lakh, as colleges charge ‘additional expenses’. If the student needs a hostel, there is an additional 2 lakh levied,” he said.

In private universities that have come up during the past two years the fee can go up to 20 lakh. “If established deemed universities with better infrastructure and hospital facilities can offer such scholarships, students will take them,” he added.

The counselling for deemed universities are done by the medical counselling committee of the Directorate-General of Health Services and fee to most medical colleges is around 23 lakh to 25 lakh.

“Colleges in Tamil Nadu have reached a peak. If they charge more students won’t join them,” said student counsellor Manickavel Arumugam.

In 2021-22, at least 187 MBBS seats across India fell vacant, and 292 seats remained vacant the next year. Though deemed universities did not declare the exact number of seats that went vacant in 2022, they were constrained to hold nearly four rounds of counselling by the medical counselling committee. The institutions were asked to fill them during stray vacancy.

The Tamil Nadu Government Doctors’ Association has been asking government not to permit any more medical colleges in the state for a few more years. “We will have more doctors than we need and employability will be a serious issue,” a senior doctor said.