Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday informed the Assembly that the State government would direct the Vigilance to examine the allegations that certain self-financing private medical colleges are collecting capitation fee for admissions to medical courses.
Replying to a debate on the notice for an adjournment motion moved by an Opposition member, the Chief Minister said the government was not averse to asking the Vigilance to look into similar charges if the Opposition or the media handed over such evidence to the government.
“Capitation fee is illegal. The government will take strong action against erring colleges,” the Chief Minister said.
Pariyaram college
The Chief Minister categorically rejected the Opposition plea to reconsider withdrawing the new fee structure for Pariyaram Medical College, which had been put on a par with other private self-financing private colleges.
The government would soon issue orders taking over the college. The process had been initiated during the previous UDF rule and the takeover would be expedited.
Former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy made a fervent plea for re-examining the fee for government merit seats at Pariyaram. When compared to the fee hike in NRI and management seats of Pariyaram, the steep hike in government merit seats was unjustified, he said. He maintained that two type of fee structure cannot co-exist once the government took over the institution.
But the Chief Minister did not buy the argument and contended that the new fee structure was necessary in view of the huge financial burden that had been mounted over the years.
“It is not possible to ask the Pariyaram management to agree to a low fee structure since it could not adopt the practices of other self-financing institutions in raising additional resources,” he said.
The Chief Minister’s stand virtually shut a route for settling the row over the government decisions since the Opposition had been pressing the government to reconsider the fee structure in the cooperative medical college in order to force the private colleges to lower their expectations.
