In a development that has sparked widespread concern, at least 148 candidates from the Economically Weaker Section category secured seats in private medical colleges under the NRI and management quotas during the first round of postgraduate counselling for 2025. These seats carry some of the highest fees in the country. In several colleges the annual cost can reach up to one crore rupees. The unexpected ability of EWS applicants to afford such fees has led to serious questions about the misuse of EWS certificates and the integrity of admission processes.
The EWS category was created to support students from financially disadvantaged backgrounds whose annual family income is below eight lakh rupees. The goal was simple. Students who are academically capable but lack financial resources should have a fair chance to pursue high quality higher education. The idea was to level the playing field, especially in fields like medicine where costs are often prohibitive for low income families.
This is why the new data is raising eyebrows. The candidates who claimed EWS benefits were not taking subsidised seats. Instead, they were enrolling in the most expensive category of seats available in private medical institutions.
As reported by Times of India several examples from private medical colleges show how EWS-category students are paying extremely high fees for NRI and management quota seats.
An EWS candidate with a NEET PG rank below one lakh ten thousand secured an NRI seat in MD Dermatology. The annual fee for this course is over one crore rupees.
Another EWS student, ranked below eighty four thousand, took an NRI quota seat in MD General Medicine. The yearly tuition here is more than fifty five lakh rupees.
The college admitted three EWS candidates under high-fee quotas. One joined Radio Diagnosis with a fee of about seventy six lakh rupees a year. The other two entered General Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynaecology where fees are around fifty lakh rupees annually.
Four of the sixteen management quota General Medicine seats were taken by EWS candidates. Each seat costs about forty eight and a half lakh rupees per year. One EWS candidate also joined MS Orthopaedics, which carries an annual fee of roughly sixty two and a half lakh rupees.
The report shows that these 148 EWS students secured seats under the NRI and management quota in the very first round itself. Officials expect this number to rise in subsequent rounds. These seats were allotted during state level counselling and are not part of the All India Quota.
The National Medical Commission has already flagged this as a matter of concern. According to senior officials, states need to examine how these EWS candidates managed to pay such extraordinarily high fees and whether there were irregularities in the verification of their financial documents.
The majority of these seats were in high demand specialties. General Medicine had 26 seats taken by EWS candidates. General Surgery had 20 and Anaesthesiology had 17. Most of these admissions happened in states like Maharashtra which had 55 such cases, Karnataka which had 27 and Tamil Nadu which had 23.
Another concerning detail is the academic ranking of these students. The lowest rank among them was around 113000 at a private college in Karad. The highest rank was around 12000 at another institution. Experts say this pattern strongly suggests that quotas are being used as a gateway to secure seats despite weaker merit profiles.
(Rh/ARC/MSM)
