BFUHS to shift 149 vacant NRI-quota MBBS seats to general category

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, September 23

The seats of NRI quota in medical colleges of the state are finding few takers because of the ‘exorbitant’ fees being charged for these admissions. At the end of three rounds of counselling, only 36 of 185 MBBS seats under the NRI quota have been filled. Worse, all 194 BDS seats of the NRI category are lying vacant in 16 dental colleges of the state.

Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS), the nodal agency to facilitate admissions to the medical and dental colleges in Punjab, has decided to give the vacant NRI quota seats to general category students, said sources in the BFUHS.

Two more barred from admission

• The BFUHS has barred 2 more candidates from admission under the NEET UG-2023 for state quota seats
• These candidates had allegedly submitted domicile certificates of more than one state in the second round of counselling
• The university had earlier barred 17 candidates for the same reason

The fee for an MBBS seat is USD 1,10,000 at all government and private medical colleges and USD 44,000 for a BDS seat. Fifteen per cent of the total seats hav been earmarked for NRI candidates in all private and government institutes of the state.

The CMC and DMC are the two medical colleges in Ludhiana which are the foremost preference of NRI candidates, followed by the government medical college at Patiala. Of the 36 NRI quota seats filled so far, 15 have been filled in CMC, 10 in DMC and 7 in Patiala.

The vacant seats are a big blow to the government institutions. After the converting the seats to general category, while the private colleges will fill these seats under management quota (charging Rs 55.25 lakh full course fee), the government colleges will charge Rs 9.05 lakh full course fee against USD 1 lakh (about Rs 93 lakh) fee for an NRI seat.

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