Health ministry asks AIIMS to review, examine students' tuition fee, fix inform user charges for patients

The Union Health Ministry has asked the Central Institute Body (CIB) of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to review and examine the tuition fee of students and also to fix inform user charges for patients in all medical institutes.

CIB is a body that provides an overarching governance structure to all AIIMS across the country.

In an office memorandum which was issued on 20 November, the Union Health Ministry has directed the CIB to rationalise and review tuition fee and fix uniform user charges of all six AIIMS, including AIIMS- Delhi.

A senior official at the health ministry said that it has been decided that AIIMS- Delhi will review all fees and users charges of the institute, on behalf of all six regional institutes.

A copy of memorandum with ANI has stated that in pursuance, to the directions of Government of India (Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Health) AIIMS Delhi is required to review all fees and users charges of the institute.

A senior official from AIIMS, on the condition of anonymity, told ANI, "There are multiple factors for the revision of tuition fees and user charges. It has been more than 25 years that users charges have not been revised at all and in these years there has been a lot of advancement in medical treatment like advanced diagnostic tests, equipment, machines etc which are very expensive. As far as tuition fee is considered it has not been revised for over 50 years or so."

"In view of the above, all centres, departments, sections and facilities are requested to submit the details of charges in the following format."

User charges are an important component of non-tax revenues. Each ministry or department may undertake an exercise, to identify the user charges levied by it and published the same of the website, read the memorandum.

While fixing the rates of user charges, the ministry and department must ensure that the user charges recover the current cost of providing services with a reasonable return on capital investment.

According to the memorandum, any deviation from these principles shall be specifically recorded with reasons justifying the setting of user charges lower than the cost recovery norms, if any.

The rates of user charges should be linked with appropriate price indices and record at least every three years. In order to enable ease of revision of user charges, the rate of user charges shall be fixed, wherever, possible through rules or executive orders and not through a statue, stated the memorandum.