No takers for 427 BDS seats in pvt colleges

Strap: To fill seats, fourth round of counselling on Jan 13

Unprecedented crisis

College Vacant seats

Desh Bhagat Dental College, Gobindgarh 65

Genesis Dental College, Ferozepur 52

RBDC, Mohali 56

Sukhmani Dental College 57

Dashmesh Dental College, Faridkot 64

GNDC, Sunam 70

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, January 10

Dental colleges in the state are facing an unprecedented crisis with 37 per cent seats lying vacant even after three rounds of counselling for admissions.

Hoping to fill some of the 427 vacant seats in 13 dental colleges, the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS) is going to conduct fourth round of counselling on January 13. Not only the self-funded private colleges, but two government colleges have also failed to fill up all BDS seats.

Data shows barring two private colleges — Christian Dental College and BJS Dental College in Ludhiana — none could fill up all seats.

At some private dental colleges, more than half the available seats are lying vacant. Punjab has 1,140 seats in two government and 13 private dental colleges.

Of the 100 seats each, Desh Bhagat Dental College, Gobindgarh, could fill 35, Genesis Dental College in Ferozepur 48, RBDC in Mohali 44, Sukhmani Dental College 43, Dashmesh Dental College, Faridkot, 36, and GNDC, Sunam, 30 seats.

Two government dental colleges in Patiala and Amritsar have four out of the 90 seats vacant.

Sources in the medical university said besides high tuition fee in private colleges, the lack of popularity of BDS course could also be due to poor job opportunities in government sector.

While the 15 dental colleges in the state are producing over 1,100 BDS and over 300 MDS doctors every year, it is after the gap of many years that the state health department had recruited 35 dental medical officers last month.

Unlike MBBS, students are not willing to pay high fee for BDS course, said sources. “We are making all efforts to fill most of the vacant seats from the registered candidates in the last counselling,” said BFUHS Vice-Chancellor Dr Raj Bahadur.

However, the colleges are not hopeful of better response from students as they got only 48 candidates against 479 vacancies in the third round of counselling.