DK Shivakumar, Minister of Water Resources and Medical Education of Karnataka said that in order to meet expenses, the state government is mulling the possibility of increasing the annual fee of medical education multi-fold in government colleges. Speaking at the legislative council on Tuesday, Shivakumar suggested that the fees for MBBS will be fixed at Rs 50,000 per year compared to Rs 17,000. The same for MD will be increased to Rs 3 lakh per year compared to Rs 50,000 earlier.
Shivakumar said that these hikes have been proposed to maintain infrastructure in colleges and give working staff of the college benefits like provident fund and pension. The minister argued that the change in fee structure is necessary as the fees have been left unrevised for more than 10 years.
Replying to a question by BJP MLC SV Sankanur, Minister Sivakumar admitted that although the National Pension Scheme was introduced in 2014, the state government was yet to introduce the facilities to medical college staff due to shortage of funds.
Health and Family Welfare Minister Shivananda S Patil urged all the parties to support the government on the issue, citing difficulty of running medical education institutions on part of the government