With thousands of Indian students still stuck in the war-torn country of Ukraine waiting for their safe passage back home, leaders from Punjab have raised questions over the standard and accessibility of medical education in India.

An appeal has been made by senior BJP leader and former Minister Prof Laxmi Kanta Chawla to the Central Government and also the state governments to take steps to provide quality and accessible medical education in every state.

At the same time, Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Punjab unit president Bhagwant Mann stressed on the need to fix the fees of medical colleges in the State. He appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to come up with a concrete plan “to open government medical colleges on a large scale across the country for medical education and restrict private medical colleges and universities to charge unreasonable fees so that Indian students do not have to risk their lives to study abroad and the country's money stays in the country”.

Punjab’s former Health Minister Prof Chawla said that 18,000 medical students are currently trapped in Ukraine and more than 2000 other citizens are yearning to come back to India.

“Between bombs and shells, they are forced to live in winter without food and water. Indian government is making good efforts to bring these children back home. But, at the same time, I want to ask from the Central Government and the Governments of all the states that why do these children from India have to go to study in other countries? Is Ukraine a bigger country than India? Is the provision of medical education in Ukraine more than our country?” said Chawla.

She pointed that there were few medical colleges in India, and in the name of donation in private medical colleges, “there is loot of crores, of not lakhs”.

“It is an appeal of the people of India to the Government of India and to the governments of all the states that arrangements for medical education should be made in every state,” she said while warning that in case, the country cannot produce doctors by giving them cheap education without bribe, “medical treatment will become expensive in the country and after studies, children will leave their country and go abroad to earn notes”.

AAP’s Punjab unit president Bhagwant Mann on Sunday stressed on the need to fix the fees of medical colleges in the state saying that all the State Governments, including the Narendra Modi Government at the Centre, should think seriously about why students from different parts of the country including Punjab and Haryana go to Ukraine, Russia, China, Philippines and Tajikistan for higher education.

Mann said that if thousands of Punjabi, Haryanvi, and Indian students were stranded in war-torn Ukraine today, the Narendra Modi government at the Centre, including governments of Punjab and Haryana, were responsible who never paid attention towards the compulsion of Indian students to go to countries like Ukraine for medical studies and higher education. “These aspiring students, belong to ordinary and middle class families, who fail to get admission in the limited seats of medical colleges due to lack of merit and do not have the financial means to pay the hefty fees of private colleges,” he said.

AAP leader said that the Central and Punjab Governments had marginalized the government medical colleges in the State. “No new medical colleges were established at the district level in Punjab after independence and there is only a slight increase in the number of seats of government colleges of Patiala, Amritsar, and Faridkot,” he said adding that there are only 675 seats of MBBS, including 100 seats of Dr BR Ambedkar Medical College at Mohali, and this figure is far less than Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.

He said that although there are about 770 MBBS seats in half a dozen private medical colleges in Punjab, where minimum charges of Rs 50 lakh to Rs 80 lakh are being levied on the students for medical degrees, the students of poor and middle class cannot afford these seats even with good ranks and students with wealthy families get these seats even at mediocre ranks.

Mann alleged that the previous governments of Punjab conspired with the private education mafia to knock down government medical colleges and then let these private players to charge students as much as they wanted without considering Supreme Court’s order to regulate fees. “On the contrary, government first increased the fee from Rs 20 lakh to Rs 30 lakh in July 2013 and then again in March 2014 to Rs 41 lakh, which is direct violence of Supreme Court’s 2004 decision that says no hike in fees for at least three years.

Mann said that health and education are AAP’s priorities. Following the formation of AAP Government in Punjab, major steps would be taken to reform government medical colleges, universities, and schools and to regulate fees of private educational institutions so that the students of Punjab would not be forced to study abroad.

He asked that if countries like Ukraine can offer six-year MBBS degree for Rs 20-25 lakhs, then why not India.

“AAP government will also inquire about the root cause of Justice Majithia Committee’s failure to regulate fees,” he added.