In a meeting held by Medical Education Minister D K Shivakumar on Monday, representatives of the Consortium of Medical Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMEDK) and Karnataka Religious and Linguistic Minority Professional Colleges Association demanded that the fee for undergraduate medical and dental courses be increased by 15%.

According to reports, M.R. Jayaram, the Chairman of the Karnataka Professional Colleges Foundation said, “College managements had asked for fees to be increased by 15%, but the government had agreed to a 10% hike.”

In 2017-2018 a memorandum of understanding was signed between private medical colleges and the Karnataka government, stating that a 10% fee hike can be applied for the next three years. However, the current 15% hike demand from the representatives of private colleges goes against this memorandum.

While a consensus has yet to be reached on the decided fee for admissions to undergraduate medical and dental seats in private institutions for 2018-2019 year, another round of talks is to be held on Wednesday.

“They are demanding for a fee hike saying that the government has increased the pay scale of employees by 30%. They are also demanding that the fee be fixed to be on par with the fee charged at deemed to be medical universities. But, we are examining the matter legally as we have already signed an agreement as per the 2006 Act during the 2017-18 academic year agreeing for a 10% hike for the next three years,” D K Shivakumar said.

Recently the Medical Council of India (MCI) denied renewal sanctions of eight medical colleges, including one government college, Koppal Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS). Consequently, Karnataka is now running short of 1210 undergraduate medical seats.