In a contentious decision, the Telangana High Court has ruled in favor of private medical and dental colleges, allowing them to charge a uniform fee across most admission quotas. The ruling, handed down on December 2nd, 2025, has raised concerns among doctors that it could make medical education unaffordable for underprivileged students.
The Healthcare Reforms Doctors Association (HRDA) has termed the decision a strategic assault on merit-based medical education. According to the HRDA, the ruling jeopardizes access for lower and middle-class aspirants by favoring private colleges’ profits over affordability.
Unlike state-run medical colleges, where all seats are filled through centralized counselling based entirely on NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test) merit, private medical colleges typically allocate around 40 to 50 percent of seats under the management quota and the NRI quota. The remaining seats, known as the convenor quota, are controlled by the state.
The State Admission and Fee Regulatory Committee (AFRC) sets fees for convenor quota seats, while individual college managements decide fees for the management quota. However, management quota seats typically cost several times more in tuition fees. For instance, students joining MBBS and postgraduate courses respectively in private colleges under the management quota would have to pay approximately ₹11.55 lakh to ₹15 lakh.
The petition filed by private medical colleges argued that charging different fees for students under the convenor and management quotas amounted to unconstitutional cross-subsidization. The court agreed with this argument, but doctors’ associations have voiced concerns about a potential sharp rise in fees for State-controlled convenor quota seats as a result of the ruling.
The implications of this ruling are still being assessed, and it remains to be seen how it will impact the affordability and accessibility of medical education in Telangana.
