stuin

Agartala, Oct. 19: The euphoria over recognition extended by the Medical Council of India (MCI) to the Tripura Medical College (TMC) has now given way to desperation, owing to the low-key response from students for admission to the first year MBBS course.

The college is in a dilemma over the lack of response from the students, apparently due to a relatively high admission fee fixed by the Society for Tripura Medical College.

The latter, which runs the college, is a government-sponsored society headed by health commissioner Yashpal Singh.

Out of a total of 85 seats under state quota, only 37 seats have been filled up by local candidates. The society and B.R. Ambedkar Hospital had prepared a waiting list of 35 candidates.

Official sources said that if the state quota seats remained open even after intake from the waiting list, an open entrance examination, regardless of ranks in the joint entrance examination, would be held after the last date for admission (October 20) is over.

Sources said that while disposing of a case on October 9 filed by the college on the issue of MCI recognition, the Supreme Court had directed that the process of admission for the current academic session be completed by October 20. “As things stand, we will have to draw upon the waiting list and if the quota is not filled up, even then we will have to conduct an admission test at the earliest. Fifteen of the total of 100 seats fall in the central quota,” said Dr J.K. Nag, the superintendent of TMC.

“A new entrant to the first year will have to deposit Rs 3.5 lakh as tuition fee, Rs 50,000 more for caution deposit and an additional Rs 24,000 as hostel charge. This sounds exorbitant in a state like Tripura but there is no other option because the state government is not in a position to subsidise the expensive medical education in the state,” Dr Nag said.

He also added that the fee structure would marginally fall in the remaining three years of the course for students because no security money would have to be deposited afresh.

The lukewarm response to the admission process and fee structure has already triggered a controversy with the Opposition leader Ratanlal Nath pointing out the difference in fee structures of the Agartala Government Medical College (AGMC) and the TMC.

“In AGMC, students are required to pay Rs 1 lakh for the first year excluding caution money and hostel charge and Rs 65,000 for each subsequent year. In contrast, the fee structure at TMC appears exorbitant,” Nath said, describing the difference in fee structure as an “instance of gross discrimination”.

He also asserted that the state government was “actually planning to hand over the management of TMC to a private party very soon and that is why the government is determined not to compromise on the fee structure despite demands from the people”.