State nod for fee reimbursement to OC medical & dental students

The Maharashtra Cabinet on Wednesday approved reimbursement of fee of open category students from medical and dental courses for the academic year 2019-20. This was committed by the BJP led gover nment by issuing notification in September last year but it was not implemented.

As reported by FPJ some of the open category students had to take admissions in the unaided private colleges instead of gover nment colleges in 2019-20 because of the introduction of reservations under the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Act and Economically Weaker Sections Act.

The cabinet approved to reimburse Rs 7.49 crore annually to 112 such affected students as per the gover nment notification issued on September 20, 2019.

The total amount of reimbursement will be Rs 33. 6 crore. This will benefit six medical / dental post graduates for a period of 3 years and 106 degree students for a period of 4.5 years.

However, open category students are demanding that the gover nment should give in writing the timeline for reimbursement of the fees paid to college.

‘’Apart from this, the list is incomplete for which the Department of Medical Education and Research will have to provide a list of balanced students out of the total 259 seats affected by the open category due to SEBC reservation. Now the onus is on DMER and the Medical Education Secretary to give justice to these meritorious students,’’ said Sudha Shenoy, a parent representative.