By Manjima Dhakal

Kathmandu, Dec. 4: Medical students are still giving continuity to their protest ignoring the appeal of their colleges to withdraw their protests and their readiness to readjust the extra fees they had charged on the students.
Although the medical colleges announced to readjust the fee structure as per the agreement reached between the government and medical colleges, the agitating students argued the agreement did not address their demands.
Anit Shinha, general secretary of Medical Education Struggle Committee, said padlocking of Chitwan Medical College and Gandaki Medical College was still in place as the agreement could not address their demands and the colleges could still take extra fees from them under different titles.
Shinha said the students of Universal Medical College reached an agreement after the college invited them for fee adjustment, but the college again purposed to charge extra fees in different headings.
“We are well aware that all other medical colleges can also charge extra fees in different titles, so we do not go for fee adjustment,” he said.
According to Shinha, Dharma Kanta Baskota, Vice-Chancellor of Tribhuvan University (TU), has promised to hold a meeting soon with the Dean, vice-chairperson of Medical Education Commission, the college owners and the agitating students to settle the issue.
“However, the meeting cannot be held right now as VC Baskota is in leave after the death of his elder brother,” he added.
“We, agitating students, hope that VC Baskota will take initiatives to settle our problems because he is also from medical field,” he added.
A week ago, on November 26, the government and private medical colleges signed a two-point understanding to refund the illegally collected fees.
According to the agreement, the fees collected in the academic year of 2018-19 and 2019-20 would be refunded or readjusted from a day after the agreement signed.
The extra fees charged from the students from 2016-17 and 2017-18 batch would be refunded based on the finding and recommendation of the committee that would be formed under the Medical Education Commission (MEC), according to the agreement.
However, soon after the agreement, the agitating students threatened to continue their protests until the medical colleges agreed to refund extra fees collected from all the students of nursing, BPH, pharmacy and BMIT.
Likewise, the students are not satisfied with the agreement to refund the fees on batch-wise. They also said that no deadline was given to the medical colleges to refund the fees.
Deepak Sharma, spokesperson at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MOEST), said the students had to sit for talks when the medical colleges had invited them for the same.
Sharma further said the university itself had been taking initiatives to address the remaining problems of the students.
The medical colleges have been charging up to Rs. 5.5 million from each student for MBBS course. The government had earlier fixed the MBBS fee at Rs 3.85 million for colleges operating inside the Kathmandu Valley, and Rs 4.245 million for colleges outside the valley.