Chandigarh, February 7
In a bid to regularise and control the fee structure in private institutions offering medical education in the state, the Punjab Government will pass a legislation to decide the fee to be charged by medical, dental, ayurvedic, nursing and homoeopathic colleges.

Admissions for the academic year 2006-07 will be made in accordance with the new fee structure that will be laid down following the legislation, said sources while confirming that the legislation will supersede the Justice G.R. Majithia Committee that gave its fee structure in July last year. The new legislation will also have a provision for an appellate authority to decide disputes arising at any point of time.

The proposed law will be first presented before the Council of Ministers and if it is cleared, a Bill will be presented in the session of the Vidhan Sabha on February 20. If the Bill is not passed in this session of the Vidhan Sabha, the government will opt to get an ordinance passed by the Punjab Governor, Gen S.F. Rodrigues (retd).

The sources said the fee structure would govern the admission fee and the tuition fee. The fee structure would vary as per the staff facilities being offered by a college. Also, the available infrastructure like buildings, teaching aids, laboratories and the latest equipment would be taken into account. Giving an example, a senior government functionary said the fee for a newly opened college that may be coming up may not match that of, say, DMC, Ludhiana.

The committee headed by Justice Majithia submitted its report to the state government in July and suggested the lowering of the fees being charged by colleges. This created a furore with most college managements crying foul and even saying that the lowered fee structure meant they could not even meet their expenses.

Privately managed medical colleges refused to implement the interim recommendations, holding that the Supreme Court’s directions had said the final recommendations were binding. Facing pressure the Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh, asked the Justice Majithia committee to review the fee structure. But the committee refused to change its recommendations saying these were justified.

Later, the Punjab Advocate-General, Mr Rajinder Singh Cheema, was asked to give his opinion. He told the Punjab Government that the Justice Majithia committee on fee fixation was a “stopgap measure or an adhoc arrangement”.

In a detailed legal opinion submitted to the government on the Majithia panel imposing its own fee structure on unaided self-financing minority and non-minority institutions, Mr Cheema had said that unrealistic or arbitrary decisions of the committee were subject to challenge.