Vijayawada, July 19: It’s a case of confusion worst confounded insofar as the availability of total seats in medical colleges in the state is concerned even as the date for the counselling is fast approaching.
The counselling for the general seats in medical and dental colleges is scheduled to begin this Monday. Curiously, the authorities at the NTR University of Health Sciences are yet to receive instructions from the state government on its latest decision to increase the management quota seats from 30 per cent to 40 per cent.
“We are hopeful of finalising all the issues, including the seats and colleges, by Saturday,” university registrar T Venugopal Rao told TOI. The university had issued a notification last week for the counselling.
“We were forced to notify the schedule ahead of getting a complete picture on the seats as we have to finish the entire process by the end of July in order to commence classes by August first week,” a senior varsity official said.
As per the Supreme Court directive, all the admissions, including the second phase (left unfilled during the first phase), should be completed by August 31, the official said, putting the blame on the Medical Council of India (MCI) for keeping the varsities in the dark on affiliations till the eleventh hour.
About 4,300 seats would be available in all the 32 medical and 21 dental colleges — both government, private and minority — in the state. As per the latest GO, the management quota seats are likely to go up from 1,290 to 1,720. However, there would be no change in the seats under the convenor quota (50 per cent) as the government didn’t make any changes. About 2,150 seats would be available under this category.
Though a fee of Rs 10,000 per annum will be charged in government medical colleges, students will have to shell out Rs 55,000 in private colleges under the convenor quota seats. While the fee for the B-category (reduced to 10 per cent from 20 per cent in private colleges) seats will be Rs 2 lakh per year, it will be Rs 4 lakh for C-category (the quota has gone up to 40 per cent from 30 per cent) seats.
However, there are allegations that the managements are collecting huge donations ranging in excess of Rs 80 lakh. While 2,050 seats were available last time, the total number of seats is likely to go up by another 250 following the MCI’s permission for 100 seats in Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) at Ongole and another 50 seats in Ashram College in Eluru. “Another 100 seats are likely to be added to the tally in two different colleges,” sources said.
–Agencies–