The Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) agreed to increase the fee of private medical colleges subject to specific conditions.

All the private sector medical colleges are informed that fees can just be increased to no more than 8 lakh on the conditions that the colleges guarantee admissions on merit, improve infrastructure, provide free medical education to five percent aspirants and submit an affidavit that they will follow the given agreement.

The management of the private sector medical institutes on the other hand claims that in consideration of the annual inflation index, fee of students should be increased to Rs 1.3 million but the council denied their claims and said that the fee cannot be increased from 8 lacs.

 The president of PMDC Dr Shabir Lehri told the media about the sou moto notice taken by Supreme Court in 2010 taken according to which the fee of medical college was decided as Rs 5, 50,000 which can be increased by seven percent annually .

Mr. Sabir Lehri said “The fee was increased to Rs6, 42,000 in 2013 and the council has been trying so that the fee is not raised because the private sector medical colleges have not made good on some of the promises that they made. Furthermore, the council had also get some complaints that the private sector medical institutes also demand bribes in the name of donations at the time of admission”

He also said that it is mandatory for private colleges to provide free education to five percent of the students according to 2012 regulations and a large number of colleges are violating this rule.

 He further added “Mainly we are paying attention on merit and just capable aspirants should be admitted into medical institutes. So we have recommended that all the medical institutes display a list of their candidates on its official website and also the list of shortlisted aspirants after the admissions. Further, the colleges can demand post-dated cheques from the aspirants when they are applying for admissions,”