Only 44 candidates for 316 NRI quota seats

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, July 13

All 23 medical and dental colleges in the state are set to face problems in filling NRI quota MBBS and BDS seats due to inadequacy of candidates.

Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) has fixed July 19 as counselling date to make admission to 140 MBBS and 176 BDS NRI quota seats. But the medical university has the list of only 44 candidates who have applied for these 316 seats.

Eight medical colleges in Punjab offer 140 NRI quota MBBS seats. The number of BDS seats reserved for the NRI candidates in 15 dental colleges in the state is 176.

Out of the total 44 aspirant NRI candidates, some have scored as low as 135 marks out of total 720 marks in the NEET-2019, the entrance exam for the admission to medical and dental colleges. Nineteen of these NRI candidates have scored less than 200 marks in the NEET.

The NRI quota seats are main source of revenue for the medical and dental colleges. An NRI candidate has to pay US $ 1.1 lakh as tuition fee for a MBBS seat and US $ 44,000 for a BDS seat.

In another major development in the admission to 1,135 MBBS seats, the BFUHS has revised the distribution of 250 MBBS seats in two private medical colleges in the state. Making a drastic cut of 10 seats for the open category candidates, in the revised list, the medical university has announced to reduce the open category students quota from 112 to 102 in the DMC, Ludhiana, and PIMS, Jalandhar.

The seat distribution has been revised on the directions of Punjab and Haryana High Court. The court has directed the state Medical Education Department to give micro reservation to the eligible candidates both in government as well as private medical and dental colleges.

In its June 6 notification, the state Medical Education Department had fixed 1 per cent micro reservation quota, each to different categories such as sports, terror-affected families, border area, backward area, freedom fighters and Punjab Police only in three government medical colleges.

But now after the High Court orders of providing micro reservation in government quota seats in private medical colleges, in the revised distribution of seats, there is loss of 10 seats to open category students in the DMC, Ludhiana, and PIMS, Jalandhar.

Three government medical colleges at Amritsar, Patiala and Faridkot already provide 32 MBBS seats under micro reservation quota. There is no such quota in Adesh Medical College, Bathinda, SGRD, Amritsar, and CMC, Ludhiana.