At the end of the 2018 All India Counselling for PG medical and dental seats, over 450 seats across the country are vacant of which a solid 150 seats alone are from Tamil Nadu. These seats are now expected to be filled by May 31 by students admitted by private universities.
According to reports, there were a total of 864 PG degree and diploma medical seats this year, across 15 government colleges after the state had surrendered 50% of seats for admission through the All India quota by the Directorate General of Health Services. The directorate returned a total of 117 vacant seats to the state government after two rounds of counselling.
Among the self-financing institutions, 10 medical colleges affiliated to The Tamilnadu Dr MGR Medical University have so far surrendered 172 seats for admissions through government quota. Admission for the remaining 81 seats under management quota were to be done by the selection committee as per the guidelines established by the Medical Council of India.
Now, all in all, there are over 150 vacant seats in Tamil Nadu after the mop up round of All India counselling.
The fees for seats under the management quota tend to be rather high, which has resulted in a large number of empty seats being left over.
An official from Directorate General of Health Services stated in a report to the New Indian Express,“Across India, over 200 non-resident Indian (NRI) seats were not filled. This is because of the huge fee that the private medical colleges charge. Per annum, Rs 40 lakh fee is collected for each NRI seat and many cannot afford it. These colleges should reduce the fee.”
Commenting on the counselling process, Dr Ravindarnath, General Secretary, Doctor’s Association for Social Equality said, “This seat allotment is not a good procedure. The Central Government should not allow deemed universities to admit the students directly. This is a wrong procedure. They will not follow any rank or merit in their admission now. They get money. So what is the purpose of conducting NEET? The state government has told the Supreme Court and the MCI that they want admission on the basis of merit and meritorious students should get admission in medical colleges. But this is what is happening now.