Hyderabad: Dental and medical students pursuing PG courses on Thursday appealed to health minister Damodar Rajanarasimha to intervene and address the concerns regarding the exorbitant fees charged by private dental institutions.
According to the students, dental colleges have now almost doubled the fees they initially charged. They said this increase will impose huge financial constraints on them.
“When I took admission under the A category, I paid a fee of 3.4 lakh for that year. But now, the colleges are forcing us to pay fees of up to 6 lakh. Moreover, they are asking me to pay the revised amount for my first year as well. Certificates of students who completed their final year are also being withheld until they pay the fee as per the revised amount. What is the point of securing a seat on merit if we could have directly paid for the management quota (category B and C) for admission? This will put an additional burden on our parents too, as most students come from middle-income groups. We have to shell out money from our own pockets for conferences, instruments, and other logistics,” a second-year MDS student at a Hyderabad dental college told TOI on the condition of anonymity.
According to the All India Dental Students Association (AIDSA), citing GO 107, the fee for category B has been raised from around 7 lakh to as high as 13 lakh by dental colleges. Similarly, the fee for category C will be 1.5 times higher than category B, as per the GO.
