36 PG medical seats in CMC now reserved for state students

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, May 17

Giving the benefit of 25 seats of postgraduate (PG) degree courses and 11 seats of PG diploma courses to state medical graduates, the Department of Medical Education and Research (DMER) on Thursday evening revised the distribution of these seats in Christian Medical College (CMC), Ludhiana.

The move follows the directions of the Punjab and Haryana High Court. Some students had challenged the PG admission formula in the CMC, according to which these 36 seats were declared open for students from across the country.

The students had demanded that like other medical colleges, these seats should also be filled only by graduates from colleges affiliated with the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences.

Opposing the plea of giving this benefit to the CMC for it being a minority-status institute, the students claimed that Sri Guru Ram Das Medical College in Amritsar was also a minority-status institute and all seats in this college were for the state students.

In the revised distribution, all government-quota 36 PG degree and diploma seats in CMC have been declared as IP seats (reserved only for the MBBS passouts of BFUHS). However, the fate of five students, who are from other parts of the country and have taken admission on these seats in the first two rounds of counselling, hangs in balance.

A senior functionary of the university said the admissions already made would not be disturbed. The change will be implemented from the next year, claimed university insiders.