AP STATE ENDORSES MEDICAL SEAT SALE

By M H Ahssan

The bazaar of medical seats and their open auctions in medical colleges of Chennai and Bangalore as exposed over the last few days is a widely prevalent practice in Andhra Pradesh. In fact, even before admissions for merit seats begin for the year 2009, college managements are discussing rates for ‘management quota’ seats readily with prospective buyers. The going rate this year (though ‘auctions’ have just about begun in colleges) is pegged at anywhere between Rs 20 and Rs 70 lakh per seat.

Medicos say that seats for post graduate admissions too have touched a new high with a PG seat in Radiology going for as much as Rs 1.5 crore at a private medical college and that for dermatology going at Rs 40 to Rs 50 lakh.

As a result, brokers promising admission ‘despite poor scores’ have surfaced with a vengeance, with promises of discounts on these management quota seat rates, their cut being Rs 10,000 per seat. When this newspaper contacted them, posing as an admission seeker, a broker said, “You give me the list of colleges you want admission in, along with your budget, and I will get you a good deal.” The broker was based out of Bangalore and offered “cheaper” admissions there.

Colleges too are readily doling out mobile numbers of admission coordinators, who in turn are politely asking the prospective buyer of these seats to come over to the college for a one-on-one chat to fix the rate.

There are 11 government medical colleges, four autonomous institutions and 21 private medical colleges in the state. The total number of seats available to aspirant doctors is about 4000. Predictably, the demand for these seats on sale is very high. “After reservation, there are cases when even meritorious students get dropped out from selection. If they can afford it, why can’t they buy a seat and study medicine,” a senior doctor questions

Government-approved sale
College managements on their part say they are doing nothing wrong. After all, they have been allowed to sell management quota seats by the government itself. “What’s the brouhaha about? These seats are meant to be sold and sky is the limit for the price,’’ questioned a senior official of a private medical college.

The official is right. The state government of Andhra Pradesh has supported the sale of these seats, turning a bl i n d eye to t h e Supreme C o u r t judgment in the year 2003 that put a complete ban on any form of capitation fee and barred colleges from indulging in any profiteering.

But over the last few years, the AP government has allowed private colleges in the state to earmark a certain percentage of seats that could be sold at their will. The sale of these seats that form the ‘management quota’ is not monitored by the government.

The state government’s Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee (AFRC) governs the fee structure of seats that fall in the A and B categories of medical colleges. Category A comprises 50 per cent of the total number of seats, whose admission is free and merit-based. Category B, comprising 20 per cent of the total seats, is payment-based wherein the fee is Rs 2 lakh for an MBBS seat and Rs 1.1 lakh for a BDS seat.

However, it is the third category of seats, C, where college managements make a killing and clearly have the approval of the state government to do so, the Supreme Court ruling notwithstanding.

“The fee structure of C category medical seats is not monitored by us,” confirmed an AFRC official. However, T Venugopal Rao, registrar of N T R University of Health Sciences said that even C category is merit-based and even this list, along with A and B, is sent to the health university for approval.

Doctored numbers add money
While private colleges point out that they are well within their right to sell these management quota seats, insiders point out that the colleges manipulate their numbers. The government has earmarked 30 per cent of total number of seats as C category, that is management quota, but insiders note that the category is more often than not inflated, usually in the garb of last minute approvals to add seats after the counselling is over.

So, for instance, if a college has an MBBS batch strength of 100 and has sought approval from the Medical Council of India to add another 50 seats which has been declined, the management would wait until the last date of counselling and then seek fresh permission directly from the health ministry to add seats. “This permission is usually already in place,” says the source. The freshly approved 50 seats are ideally meant to be added to the common 100, but in many cases are sold as management quota seats. “So, of the 150 seats, almost half become management quota seats,” says the insider.

Another modus-operandi of colleges, according to parents who have gone through the admission grind is to inflate their batch strength to take in more management quota students. So while their batch strength would be 150 students, they would take more management quota students inflating the strength to 165 or more. “It is for this reason that some students are not allowed to write their exam in the first year, the reason cited as poor attendance,” says a parent, adding that these students are then moved to the ‘referred batch’ that clears the exam after six months. Parents allege that private colleges have more students in referred batches than government medical colleges.

However, T Venugopal Rao said that no irregularities in the functioning of the private colleges have been found so far.

Genesis of the trend
Former director of medical education, Dr A Y Chary, says that the trend of selling seats is not a new one and it started when private colleges came into being about a decade ago to accommodate more students. Given that these private medical colleges came up on their own expenditure, the government allowed them to sell a certain percentage of their seats. “However if they are selling merit seats, then it is wrong,’’ Dr Chary said.