By Manjima Dhakal

Kathmandu, Dec .17: started refunding and readjusting the extra fees of the first and second year students of MBBS and BDS courses as per the agreement reached with the Ministry of Education.
The students have agreed to withdraw their protests after the colleges refunded the extra fees taken from the first year and second year students and the government formed a taskforce to study on the extra fees collected from the third and fourth year students.
All agitating students have decided to take classes and engaged in academic activities with a belief that that the Medical Education Commission-formed taskforce would address their remaining demands, including fee adjustment of third year and fourth year students.
Anit Shinha, general secretary of the Medical Education Struggle Committee and a student of Gandaki Medical College, said that the problem of fee adjustment and refund of the first year and second year students was settled in Universal College of Medical Sciences, National Medical College, Birgunj, Gandaki Medical College, and the Nepalese Army Institute of Health Science.
“So, students of these colleges have decided to withdraw all their protest programmes which we had launched demanding refund of the extra fees taken by the medical colleges,” he said.
We are hopeful that the Medical Education Commission will give justice to the students of third and fourth years.”
Ramesh Acharya, a member of taskforce formed by Medical Education Commission to resolve the fee adjustment problem of third and fourth year students, said the taskforce had been doing its works like studying the documents, conducting discussion and investigating into the issues in full swing.
“We will publish the report after completing our study, but the taskforce is not in condition to publish the report in rush without carrying an in-depth investigation,” he added.
However, students of Chitwan Medical College (CMC) are still giving continuity to their protests putting forth the same demands.
On Sunday, the CMC had called the students for talks by issuing a public notice stating that the college was ready to implement the agreement reached with the government.
However, the agitating students refuted to accept the call for talks stating that the notice was not clear and the college denied readjusting all extra fees taken from them.
Nasim Akhtar, agitating student of CMC, said the college had taken Rs. 600,000 extra fees from one student, but it wanted to refund or readjust only Rs. 200,000 to each student. “Still the college wants to cheat Rs. 400,000 from us. Therefore, our protest will continue till the college will not agree to refund all extra fees.”
However, Dr. Harish Neupane, managing director of the CMC, rejected the blame of students. He stated that the students were labeling blamed superficially without coming in contact with the college.
“The CMC has also agreed to readjust and refund the fees as UCMS, Gandaki and National Medical colleges are now doing, but the students are running outside without coming in talk with college administration,” he added.
Meanwhile, the colleges where the students launched protests initiated to readjust and refund the extra fees, many colleges, which did not face such protest, have kept mum regarding the extra fees they collected.
Medical colleges like Kathmandu Medical College, Nobel Medical College, KIST Medical College have not taken any initiation to readjust the fees though they had also charged extra fees on the students.
The medical colleges had charged up to Rs 5.5 million on 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 for colleges outside the valley.