275 BDS seats still vacant

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, September 13

Several seats in dental colleges of the state have remained vacant for the fourth consecutive year.

After four rounds of counselling by the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) in the last one month, 275 out of 1,130 BDS seats in nine dental colleges have found no takers even after the Medical Education Department relaxed the eligibility criteria.

One of the relaxations was that students from any part of the country were eligible for admission.

Some college had even offered “rebate” on their fee structure to woo students. “Any ‘rebate’ on government-fixed fee is against rules,” said Dr Raj Bahadur, Vice Chancellor, BFUHS.

Only four dental colleges, including two government ones, filled all their seats. A private medical university found no candidate for its 70 out of 100 BDS seats, while another private university failed to fill 90 out of 100 seats.

Last year, 543 BDS seats had remained vacant and, in the 2015-16 academic session, the number was 540.

The newly opened dental college in Mandi Gobindgarh — Desh Bhagat Dental College — filled only 10 seats against its intake capacity of 100. Adesh Dental College, Bathinda, could get only 30 candidates against its capacity of 100 students.

In private dental colleges, the seats are divided equally between government and management quota.

Desh Bhagat Dental College is an exception as all 40 seats under the government quota remained vacant.

Under the management quota, Rs 2.20 lakh per year is the tuition fee for the BDS course. However for a government quota seat, this fee is Rs 1.65 lakh in private colleges.