Chandigarh: The Punjab government on Monday announced a 16.67 percent fee reduction for medicine, dental and ayurvedic medicine courses under the management quota seats. The fee cut is expected to attract more medical students in the state.

The fee cut will be only for special management quota seats for MBBS, bachelor of dental sciences (BDS) and bachelor of ayurvedic medicine and sciences (BAMS) courses.

According to a government spokesman, the fee for special management quota seats for MBBS has been reduced from Rs.600,000 to Rs.500,000 per year, while the fee for BDS has been reduced from Rs.460,000 to Rs.383,318. For BAMS, Rs.183,326 will be charged instead of Rs.220,000 earlier.

However, the government has not changed the annual fee of Rs.700,000 for NRIs for the MBBS course.

The state government had increased fee for the government quota seats by 15 percent in 2007.

The spokesman said that the fee for these medical courses was the lowest in the country and this would attract students from Punjab and other states to pursue medical studies here. IANS