Tuition for 5.5 years on a 4.5-year course, 11 complaints, Rs 24.75 lakh at Saveetha: Tamil Nadu's 2026 medical fee probe and its letter to the NMC

In Tamil Nadu the fee for an MBBS seat is supposed to be fixed. The State Fee Determination Committee sets ceilings for private colleges, and the National Medical Commission said in a public notice on 7 April 2026 that colleges may collect tuition only for the 4.5-year academic course, not for the one-year compulsory internship. The state spent much of 2026 trying to make private colleges obey.

According to DT Next (1 July 2026), the Directorate of Medical Education set up a committee headed by a government medical college dean to inspect three private medical colleges, after complaints through the Chief Minister's Special Cell and the DME that they had collected tuition for five and a half years and above the committee's limits. DT Next published the approved structure: Rs 4.35 lakh to Rs 5.40 lakh a year for government-quota MBBS seats in private colleges and Rs 15 lakh to Rs 16.20 lakh a year for management-quota seats. Medical Dialogues reported on 4 July that Health Minister K G Arunraj, at a review meeting in Chennai, warned of strict action against any institution charging beyond NMC norms. On 1 September, PTI reported via the Free Press Journal, the minister told the Assembly that 11 formal complaints had been received, that committees had been formed and that strict legal action would follow, after AIADMK's Agri S S Krishnamoorthy alleged that several private institutions were charging for 5.5 years.

The clearest named case came in October. Medical Dialogues reported on 23 October 2026, citing a Health Department press release and a report in The New Indian Express, that final-year MBBS students of the 2022 batch at Saveetha Medical College, part of a deemed-to-be university, and their parents had complained that the college was demanding Rs 24.75 lakh in tuition for the year and had disabled the attendance portal for students who had not paid, with access suspended since 30 September. The state's investigation found the college had not followed NMC guidelines on tuition, the report said, and the government wrote to the NMC asking it to have the portal reopened so that no student lost attendance, internship or exam eligibility, to order refund or adjustment of excess amounts, and to ensure no student or parent faced repercussions for complaining. The press release, quoting the minister, said that because the college is part of a deemed university it falls outside the purview of the State Tuition Fee Fixation Committee.

That sentence is the mechanism. Deemed universities are not bound by the state committee's ceilings, so when the complaint arrived the state's route was a letter to the NMC rather than an order of its own. The pattern in the complaints was billing for the internship year and using attendance access as leverage.

Before accepting a seat, ask for the fee schedule in writing for all 4.5 years and check whether the college sits under the state fee committee or belongs to a deemed university. Keep every receipt. If a college blocks attendance or exams over disputed fees, the complaint route in Tamil Nadu is the DME and the Chief Minister's cell; for a deemed university, the complaint has to reach the NMC.