Merit twist: AP students enter Gandhi and Osmania medical colleges in Telangana

Merit twist: AP students enter Gandhi and Osmania medical colleges in Telangana 

DECCAN CHRONICLE. | N VAMSI SRINIVAS

 Published Dec 28, 2020, 4:27 am IST

As per the admission rules, 15% seats in each college are declared unreserved and the remaining 85% are reserved exclusively for local pupil
 
The allotment process adopted by the Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS) in Phase 2 counselling resulted in at least 40 students from AP, a majrity of whom are otherwise ineligible, making it to the government colleges in Telangana state and locals losing an equal number of seats (Representational Image)

Hyderabad: Several students from Andhra Pradesh have secured admission in government medical colleges in Telangana state, including the prestigious Gandhi and Osmania, allegedly in violation of rules, thereby depriving local students of an opportunity to join these top-ranked institutions.

The allotment process adopted by the Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS) in Phase 2 counselling resulted in at least 40 students from AP, a majority of whom are otherwise ineligible, making it to the government colleges in Telangana state and locals losing an equal number of seats.

The process also virtually converted the “un-reserved category”, in which meritorious students compete for the seat irrespective of their local status, caste or religion, into a “reserved” category for non-local students.

All the students in Gandhi and Osmania medical colleges who got admission in the un-reserved category in the Phase 2 counselling belong to either Andhra University or Sri Venkateswara University regions and same is the case with many other government colleges in Telangana state.

Significantly, the NTR University of Health Sciences (NTRUHS), AP, which initially followed the same procedure as KNRUHS, cancelled allotments of Phase 2 counselling stating that it was faulty. It claimed to have rectified the error and made fresh allotments in a different procedure.

What is intriguing is that the Kaloji University also cancelled Phase 2 counselling citing technical reasons. Except for including two students in Phase 2 counselling following High Court orders, it stuck to the old procedure.

“Both universities cannot be right because the procedures they followed are completely opposite,” said Dr Ala Venkateswarlu of Guntur, who complained against the faulty procedure in AP and got it rectified. “The only difference between the two procedures is that local students of Telangana state were deprived of seats because of the Kaloji University procedure,” he added. Earlier, he filed a public interest litigation (PIL) and succeeded getting in the AP government to implement the rule of reservation in sliding as per Supreme Court judgments.

As per the admission rules, 15 per cent seats in each college are declared “unreserved” and the remaining 85 per cent are reserved exclusively for local students. The Phase 1 counselling was held strictly by this procedure in both states.

But, when a vacancy arises in the “unreserved” quota during Phase 2 counselling, a student who has already got a seat in Telangana state under the “local quota” should be pushed up into the “unreserved” quota if she is more meritorious than the student from AU or SVU regions. In such case, there will be a vacancy in the “local quota” which can be filled with another Telangana state student.

But, the KNRUHS authorities retained the TS local student in the local category and filled the vacancy in the “unreserved” category with non-local students. As a result, not only could ineligible non-local students secure admission in the “unreserved” quota but also local students were deprived of the seats.

When contacted, KNRUHS registrar Dr Praveen initially tried to justify the decision saying that students from other states did not join and hence those vacancies would be filled by local students in the Phase 3 counselling. Asked what if they did join the college, he said that the admission committee members would be able to better explain the procedure followed by the university. He assured this reporter that a member of the admission committee would call and clarify but none approached till the report was filed.

As per the admission procedure adopted by the NTR University of Health Sciences (NTRUHS), the student with Rank 6784 got admission in Andhra Medical College, Visakhapatnam, in the 85 per cent “local” quota in Phase 1 counselling.

During Phase 2 counselling, his status got changed to the 15 per cent “unreserved” quota because of which another AP student got admission in the “local” quota.

As per admission procedure adopted by the Kaloji University of Health Sciences, the student with Rank 1445 got admission in Gandhi Medical College, Secunderabad, in the local quota in phase one.

In Phase 2 counselling, there were eight vacancies in the “unreserved” quota. The status of the first eight students who got admission in the “local” quota remained the same. However, as they had got better ranks than the students from AU and SVU regions, they should have been pushed to the “unreserved” quota as a result of which there would have been eight vacancies in the “local” quota.

But, the vacancies in the "unreserved" quota were filled by the students from AU and SVU who would not otherwise have any chance of competing with Telangana state students because of their lower ranks. As a result, eight local students of Telangana state lost the opportunity of studying in Gandhi Medical College.