MBBS Fee for NRIs Set at Rs 20 Lakh in Kerala

The provisional tuition fee for Non-Resident Indian (NRI) students for the MBBS course was set at Rs 20 lakh per student for 2018-19 by Justice Rajendra Babu-led Kerala Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee for Medical Education.

The medical education committee also decided that the Rs 20 lakh fee will be applicable in retrospect as well for those who joined in 2017-18. Principals of medical colleges have been instructed to collect the NRI fee at Rs 20 lakh per student. Rs 5 lakh will be set aside from that amount as corpus fund for scholarship for Below Poverty Line (BPL) category students.

For colleges under the Kerala Christian Professional College Management Federation (KCPCMF), the NRI fee was decided as Rs 18 lakh for the year 2017-18, as per a high court order dated Oct. 31, 2017. Those colleges have also been instructed to set aside Rs 5 lakh for awarding scholarship to BPL category students. The colleges under KCPCMF are Amala Institute of Medical Sciences, Thrissur Jubilee Mission Medical College and Research Centre, Thrissur, Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church Medical College, Kolenchery, and Pushpagiri Institute of Medical Sciences.

Since the committee’s order on NRI fees, issued in October last year, has been challenged in the Kerala High Court, the fee for KCPCMF member colleges will be subject to the court’s final verdict.

For non-NRI students, the fee for MBBS course at private self-financing medical colleges in Kerala was fixed at Rs 5.5 lakh for the 2017-18 academic year. There are 15 per cent NRI seats at the colleges.

The committee, in June 2017, had dismissed the demand from private colleges to peg the fees at Rs 15 lakh as “exorbitant, exploitative and profiteering,” according to the Press Trust of India.

The fee for NRI seats was increased by Rs 5 lakh to ₹20 lakh. The committee also decided the fee for BDS seats general merit at ₹2.90 lakh and that for NRI seats at ₹6 lakh in June 2017.

Many colleges had petitioned the court arguing that the by assigning a committee to determine college fees of private medical colleges, it was violating the fundamental rights of the colleges as guaranteed under law and the law declared by the apex court in TMA Pai Foundation case.