Medical counselling in state likely to begin in two weeks

 Medical counselling in state likely to begin in two weeks

Order Brings Relief To Over 40k Aspirants In Tamil Nadu

---

Ragu.Raman@timesgroup.com

08.01.2022

Chennai: The Supreme Court's order on Friday allowing resumption of NEET-PG and NEET-UG counselling for all India quota seats by following 27% quota for other backward class (OBC) and 10% quota for economically weaker sections (EWS) has removed the bottleneck for conducting MBBS/BDS admissions in Tamil Nadu.

The counselling for the medical seats under the state quota is likely to begin in two weeks, according to officials from the directorate of medical education.

The order brings the anxious wait of more than 40,000 medical aspirants for the last two months to an end. "After the publication of first-round counselling results for All India Quota (AIQ) seats by the Medical Counselling Commit-tee (MCC) of Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), we will start MBBS/ BDS counselling in Tamil Nadu. It will take12 to 15 days. We will start our counselling tentatively at the end of the third week or beginning of the fourth week of January," said P Vasanthamani, secretary of the Selection Committee, Directorate of Medical Education.

Citing the pending case regarding EWS quota in PG med- ical admissions in the apex court, the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) of Directorate General of Health Services postponed MBBS counselling for AIQ seats as well.

As per the usual practice, TN has been conducting medical admission after the first round of counselling for seats under AIQ is over. "It will give toppers an opportunity to choose seats from AIQ. So, it will give more seats to Tamil Nadu students," officials said.

As many as 40,288 students have applied to the counselling for MBBS/BDS admissions which is 1000 more compared to the previous year. The last date for submitting online applications ended on January 7.

"While 25,511 students applied for government quota seats, 14,777 students have applied for seats under management quota this year," Vasanthamani added.

Last year, 39,223 applications were received for government and management quota seats. This year, 11 new government medical colleges will add 1,450 seats while Government Coimbatore Medical College got permission to add 50 additional seats. Thirty-seven government medical colleges will offer 5,125 seats. There will be 4,356 seats available for state quota counselling after allocating15% of seats for AIQ.

Meanwhile, the apex court, while passing the judgment, stated that the validity of the criteria determined by the committee would prospectively be subject to its final order. The court said it will hear the matter in detail in the third week of March.