Mgmt or govt quota: Status of 182 MBBS seats leaves medical students confused

FARIDKOT: Following a “disagreement” on the status of 182 MBBS seats in three private medical colleges in the state, the Department of Medical Education and Research (DMER) has not yet announced the seat matrix of a total of 1,025 MBBS seats in eight medical colleges in the state for counselling, slated to start on June 29, leaving thousands of medical aspirants in a state of confusion.

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, June 23

Following a “disagreement” on the status of 182 MBBS seats in three private medical colleges in the state, the Department of Medical Education and Research (DMER) has not yet announced the seat matrix of a total of 1,025 MBBS seats in eight medical colleges in the state for counselling, slated to start on June 29, leaving thousands of medical aspirants in a state of confusion.

While the first round of online counselling for the MBBS course is to start on June 29, the students have no details of seat matrix to fill their counselling forms and preferences of colleges so far.

There is difference of opinion on whether 75 MBBS seats each at Adesh and Guru Ram Das Medical College and 32 MBBS seats at the CMC, Ludhiana, be treated as government or management quota seats at the three medical colleges and the DMER. The latter has failed to announce the seat matrix of all the available MBBS seats in the state even six days before the start of counselling.

In its February 6, 2018, notification, the DMER announced that 50 per cent of seats in private medical colleges shall be government quota seats. However, Adesh, CMC and Sri Guru Ram Dass Medical Colleges (with 150, 75 and 150 MBBS seats, respectively) in their prospectus have announced not to retain even a single seat as government quota seat.

Out of its total 75 seats, CMC Ludhiana has announced to keep only 12 seats for Punjab students in the open and reserve category as management quota. The college has reserved the maximum of its (48) seats for the Christian minorities, followed by 11 seats for the NRI candidates and 4 seats for the all-India open quota.

However, after a decision by the Punjab and Haryana High Court, this minority institute is to keep 32 seats as government quota for state students.

About the ‘dispute’ over government and management quota seats, Dr Jeyaraj Pandian, principal, CMC, Ludhiana, said the college has raised the matter with the state government and is hopeful of an early decision on the status of all seats.

The main reason for the private colleges not retaining the government quota is the huge difference in tuition fee under the government and management quota seats. While the fee for a government quota seat in a private college is fixed at Rs 13.43 lakh for a full course, it is Rs 40.29 lakh for management quota seats. GPI Singh, Vice-Chancellor, Adesh Medical University, claimed that being an autonomous university, it had the right to frame its seat matrix, declaring all as management quota seats.

While the officials at Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS), the centralised authority for conducting counselling, said they were waiting for the seat matrix from the government, Satish Chandra, additional chief secretary, DMER, said the matrix will be released as per the notification in the coming days.