E-Paper
Only 8 NRI students apply for PG medical courses in Punjab
All the applications are for MS/MD courses and no NRI student has applied for MDS courses in the state. The colleges set aside 15% of their seats for NRI students so as to generate revenue, some of which is used to cross-subsidise merit-list seats.
Medical and dental colleges in Punjab are once again seeing a shortfall in NRI quota applicants for postgraduate courses. For the 46 NRI quota seats available in three private medical and eight dental colleges in the state, only eight applications have been received during the first round of counselling.
All the applications are for MS/MD courses and no NRI student has applied for MDS courses in the state. The colleges set aside 15% of their seats for NRI students so as to generate revenue, some of which is used to cross-subsidise merit-list seats.
Experts, however, say that most of these seats go vacant every year due to the exorbitant fee and thus are ultimately turned into general category seats after two rounds of counselling.
An official of the medical education department, on the condition of anonymity, said, “The reason main reason why there is few takers for NRI quota seats in MS (Master of Surgery), MD (Doctor of Medicine) and MDS (Master of Dental Surgery) seats is that the tuition fee is very high. In addition to that, students also have to bear many other expenses during their course, making it a highly expensive course.”
Fee structure
The full course fee for an NRI quota, MS/MD seat is $1.25 lakh ( ₹1 crore) in private colleges while for an MDS seat, it comes to around $1,00,000 ( ₹81 lakh) in all dental colleges.
For general category students, it is comparatively lower. A general category student studying MD/MS at a government college pays ₹4.5 lakh for a full term while at a private medical college, the student has to pay around ₹19.50 lakh. For an MDS course, a general category student pays around ₹4.5-lakh at a government college while it costs around ₹17.55 lakh at private colleges.
