The recent directive of the National Medical Commission (NMC) to medical colleges in the country to levy fees from MBBS students only for four-and-a-half years is unlikely to be implemented in Kerala now.
In the order issued on April 7, 2026, the NMC had said that collecting fee from students for the entire duration of the course for five years or five-and-a-half years would not be permitted. The MBBS course comprises four-and-a-half years (54 months) of academic study, followed by one year of compulsory rotating internship. In government medical colleges in Kerala, the annual fee is over ₹30,000, while in self-financing colleges it is around ₹8 lakh and above for the general category and ₹21 lakh and above for the NRI category.
