New Delhi, April 2: India should completely throw open medical education to the private sector and eliminate caps on fees charged by private medical colleges, a Planning Commission panel said today.

The recommendations from the High Level Group on the Services Sector set up by the commission have triggered angry reactions from within sections of India’s medical community.

“I think these suggestions are disgusting,” said Kunchala Shyamprasad, a cardiothoracic surgeon and a member of a government task force on medical education. “They are not based on India’s real health care needs, but appear designed to please the private sector,” said Shyamprasad, who is also vice-president of an agency that conducts postgraduate medical studies.

The panel has said entry barriers to medical education such as requirements of land and built-up space need to be lowered to realistic levels to allow the creation of new colleges and increase the number of doctors.

Under existing rules, an aspiring 50-seat medical college needs to have 25 acres of land for the campus that has to include 23,000 square feet as college space and 30,000 square feet for a hostel. The group has dubbed these rules an “access barrier” that hampers greater private participation.

It said the only way to increase human resources in medicine would be to open up medical education to the private sector completely. “The private sector colleges will need to be regulated only for quality, but no regulation is needed either for fees charged by them from students or the emoluments paid by them to teachers,” the group said.

However, these private colleges may be mandated to grant full or part scholarships to a proportion of seats for meritorious students who do not have the means to pay their regular fees, it said.

The recommendations — although not binding on the government — have sparked criticism from some doctors who said they merely expose a lack of understanding of India’s real health needs.

“I don’t see much good coming out of such steps. They might help corporate hospitals enter medical education and they might legalise capitation fees, which are illegal today,” Shyamprasad said.