An unprecedented rush was witnessed for paramedical courses like nursing, physiotherapy and pharmacology, with 12,000 applications forms being sold in just two days. This means around half the number of printed forms have been sold before the closing date of July 4.
“We have printed 23,000 forms this year and there is a reserve of another 2,000 forms. But we have seen a big number being sold in first two days itself,” said Dr R G Sukumar, Chairman of selection committee of the Directorate of Medical Education. Last year around the same time, the number of paramedical course applications sold was considerably lower, and only about 8,000 forms were sold in the first four days. A senior doctor with the Tamil Nadu Medical Council said the heavy demand for these courses stemmed from the fact that there is a burgeoning demand in West Asian and South East Asian countries.
However, most parents are in a quandary because of the ‘delay’ in the sale of applications. “We cannot solely rely on government seats because there are so very few of them. We have also applied for other seats at private medical universities,” complained N S Sivananthan, father of a Class XII passout from Kancheepuram, who bought an application for admission to the Madras Medical College.
“The private university had completed the admission and asked us to pay the fees to take the seat a week ago. We don’t know whether to wait and lose the private seat hoping for a government seat,” he added.
Several parents said they had purchased the application and submitted it on the first day itself with the hope that they would get a speedy reply. “This is unrealistic as the last date for receiving filled-in applications is July 5 and processing will be done only after that,” said a source in the DME.