BENGALURU: Medical seat aspirants from the state need not worry about the delay in the announcement of the seat matrix and commencement of counselling. The Medical Council of India (MCI) has decided to extend the deadline for counselling.
As per the Supreme Court direction, the counselling process for under-graduate medical and dental courses must be completed by September 30 across the nation.
This year, the schedule in most of the states was changed due to the Supreme Court judgement mandating implementation of the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). Following this, many states requested the MCI to extend the deadline. According to MCI sources, “Since the NEET results will be out only in mid August, the states and other authorities will hardly get a month’s time to complete the process. It was therefore decided to extend the date.” According to sources, there are chances that the deadline will be extended by 15 more days.
This will be a boon for Karnataka as the negotiation with private medical colleges to get seats is still going on. The state government is trying its best to get 40 per cent of seats from private colleges, which had announced a month ago that they would withdraw the seats. Medical Education Minister Sharan Prakash Patil told Express, “We did receive information about the MCI planning to extend the deadline for admission to medical courses. If that is the case, we don’t need to worry about the delay.”
However, the government is convening a series of meetings with managements of private colleges to get 40 per cent seats.