77% medical seats under NRI quota go abegging

77% medical seats under NRI quota go abegging

TNN | Mar 5, 2022, 03.49 AM IST

Chennai: Nearly 77% of the undergraduate medical seats under the NRI quota have remained vacant after the first round of online medical counselling for 2021 admissions. The state selection committee, which has extended counselling for the category, has announced that if these seats continue to remain vacant until Monday, they will be considered as “lapsed seats” and moved to the general pool.

When the counselling opened, 17 self-financing colleges asked for 15% of the seats to be set aside for NRI admissions, for which the fee committee has permitted college managements to charge ₹23.50 lakh as an annual fee. “But even when we opened the counselling there were just 250 applications for the 398 seats. When the process began, 106 candidates locked choices and 92 took the seats,” said selection committee secretary Dr P Vasanthamani.

The committee then decided to extend the first round of counselling for the category and the deadline for registration ended by noon on Friday. Candidates have been asked to lock choices by 10pm on Saturday. “We will be putting out the results by Saturday and students will be given time to join colleges until Monday,” she said.

Seats that continue to remain vacant after Monday will be considered ‘lapsed NRI seats’ and added back into the management quota matrix. Students from the general category in the management rank list can apply for the seats. The fee for lapsed seats will be ₹20.3 lakh. The fee committee has allowed colleges to charge to take ₹12.5 lakh for students allotted under management quota and ₹3.8 to ₹4 lakh for students allotted under government quota.

Students say they will be happy to have at least 300 more seats on the seat matrix. “These seats will cost us more than management quota seats, but it is still lesser than deemed universities, which is the only other option we are left with,” he said.

The admissions to deemed universities, which charge around ₹25lakh a year, are done by the medical counselling committee of the Directorate General of Health Services.