Cut-off lowered, fee slashed, yet 375 BDS seats remain vacant

Balwant Garg
Tribune News Service
Faridkot, September 13

Advertisement

Even after trying to attract students by lowering the qualifying marks for admission, nine dental colleges in the state could not fill 44 per cent of their BDS seats.

After completion of the final round of admissions to BDS seats on Friday evening, Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) has announced that 375 out of total 850 BDS seats in nine dental colleges were still vacant.

After lowering the qualifying cut-off percentile by 10 percentile for each category, the BFUHS was conducting counselling for 522 vacant BDS seats.

Besides, the dental colleges had also offered many incentives and waivers to students in tuition fee, but all these efforts to lure the students notwithstanding, the colleges could get candidates on only 147 BDS seats.

As per the information procured from the BFUHS, the maximum seats — 82 (out of total 100) — have remained vacant at Desh Bhagat Dental College at Gobindgarh, followed by 61 vacant seats at GNDC, Sunam, 59 at Genesis Dental College, Ferozepur, 55 at Rayat Bahra Dental College, Mohali, 41 at NDC, Dera Bassi, 29 at Adesh Dental College, Bathinda, 18 at Sukhmani Dental College, Dera Bassi, 17 at Dashmesh Dental College, Faridkot, and 13 seats remained vacant at SKSS, Ludhiana.

Two government dental colleges, at Amritsar and Patiala, and four private dental colleges, including BJS Ludhiana, LBDC Patiala, SGRD Amritsar and CDC Ludhiana, were able to fill all their 380 BDS seats. The 15 dental colleges in Punjab offer 1,230 BDS seats in total.

After a large number of BDS seats had remained vacant in the second round of counselling, ending September 7, the qualifying percentile for general category candidates was lowered from 50 to 40. For the SC/ST/OBC candidates and persons with locomotory disability of lower limbs, this qualifying percentile had been lowered from 40 to 30 and 45 to 35, respectively. But this relaxation in eligibility criteria could fetch the dental colleges only 147 more candidates.

It is the record highest number of vacant BDS seats. Last year, 201 BDS seats had remained vacant in the state.

Only 6 colleges have full occupancy 

• Two government dental colleges, at Amritsar and Patiala, and four private dental colleges, including BJS Ludhiana, LBDC Patiala, SGRD Amritsar and CDC Ludhiana, were able to fill all their 380 BDS seats. The 15 dental colleges in Punjab offer 1,230 BDS seats in total.
• The maximum seats — 82 (out of total 100) — have remained vacant at Desh Bhagat Dental College, Gobindgarh, followed by 61 vacant seats at GNDC, Sunam, 59 at Genesis Dental College, Ferozepur, 55 at Rayat Bahra Dental College, Mohali, 41 at NDC, Dera Bassi, 29 at Adesh Dental College, Bathinda, 18 at Sukhmani Dental College, Dera Bassi, 17 at Dashmesh Dental College, Faridkot, and 13 seats remained vacant at SKSS, Ludhiana