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The Government of India will be commencing the process of reviewing the fee structure of all AIIMS institutions soon. The fees of AIIMS is likely to increase to Rs. 50,000 - Rs. 70,000 per year.
The fee hike in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) continues to be a burning issue even after so many days and despite the deadlock, the government has commenced the process of reviewing the fee structures of all the AIIMS institutions of the country, including AIIMS Delhi . There are several institutions of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in India and they offer medical education to students with the fees being extremely nominal.
The fees of AIIMS is the least expensive among all the medical institutions in India and a student is charged only Rs. 6,000 for the whole duration of the MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery) programme. This includes the tuition fee, the hostel fee, and all the other charges for academic purposes. The government is also reviewing the user fee that is charged from patients at these institutes which is also highly subsidised at present.
As per the officials of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) of the Government of India, the plan is to raise the MBBS fees at all AIIMS institutions up to Rs. 50,000 - Rs. 70,000 per year. All the institutes have been asked by the Central Institute Body (CIB) to furnish details of the revenue generated and the cost incurred by 25 November 2019.
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The authorities will evaluate the inputs and then come up with a decision regarding how to revise the fee structure of AIIMS as well as the charges for tests, consultations, and procedures from patients. CIB is considered to be the top decision-making body of all the AIIMS institutions.
A letter was issued by the financial advisor of AIIMS Delhi that was addressed to the institutes in other centres and it said that the CIB has decided that it will review the tuition fee of students and will also fix uniform user charges for the patients in all AIIMS. It also said that AIIMS Delhi is required to review the fee and user charges in pursuance of the directions given by the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of the Government of India. The letter cited Rule 47 of the General Financial Rules of 2017 which states that in their quest of fixing the rates of user charges, departments and ministries must recover the current cost of providing services with a reasonable return on capital investment.
Presently, the Indian government gives about Rs. 3,500 crores to AIIMS Delhi and Rs. 300 - Rs. 500 crores to each of the other 14 functional AIIMS every year. An internal analysis was conducted some time back regarding the cost of education by AIIMS Delhi and it was found that the government spends more than Rs. 1 crore on every student for the course of MBBS at the institute.
A senior official at the ministry spoke on the matter and said that they are asking the AIIMS institutes to generate at least Rs. 70 - 75 crores every year by charging for patient services and MBBS programmes. The current statistics reveal that AIIMS Delhi generates only Rs. 2 - 3 crores every year.
However, this move has become a matter of concern for the students who say that investment in education and healthcare should not be based merely on business calculations. Mukul Kumar, the president of the Students’ Union of AIIMS Delhi, said that the students will not allow the government to destroy the healthcare and education system of India under any circumstances.
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The fee hike in some of the most sought after and prestigious institutions of the country has led to serious protests from students. They say that increasing the fee of such universities will make education inaccessible to a huge crowd of students who cannot afford to pay such high amounts.
