PUDUCHERRY: With the counselling for admission to medical and other courses set to begin on Tuesday, doubts persisted over admission to government medical colleges, as they are yet to get approval for admission of students. Meanwhile, the self-financing Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences is waging a battle in the High Court against providing seats to the government pool.
Students who were called for counselling for the MBBS and BDS courses on 24th and 25th June, 2014, are required to furnish their choice of course and college only at the time of counselling, according to a release from CENTAC. This is in view of the approval pending from the Medical Council of India in respect of Indira Gandhi Medical College & Research Institute and also the pending case in the Madras High Court relating to Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences.
Students will be provided with an allocation rank on provisional basis and regular allotment will be sent to them either through e-mail or other means of communication during the second week of July, 2014. In case additional counselling is required, the date would be announced later, the release stated.
Presuming that some of the students figuring in CENTAC merit list would shift after the JIPMER counselling, scheduled to be held on July 11 and 12, the government is hoping that by then the position with regard to IGMCRI and PIMS be cleared, following which allotment orders would be issued to students, some time in mid July, based on the CENTAC counselling.
The compliance report on submission to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, has been sent to Medical Council of India (MCI) for making fresh recommendations to the ministry. It is still unknown whether MCI would go by the report and respond or make a re-inspection before making recommendation. The Puducherry government has no other option but to wait for the response and hope for the best.
There is a possibility that the MCI could recommend lower seats available for admissions from 150 to 100, since all the vacant posts of faculty members have not been filled. Though the government assured that the required number of faculty have been appointed, a good number of those appointed are serving in a second institutions and would have to be relieved after serving the full notice period before joining IGMCRI. However, the administration defended this by claiming that all the appointed faculty members would join by September 1.
If the college gets a late approval then the 23 seats earmarked under the government of India quota will not be filled by them and will come under CENTAC for Puducherry students.
On the other hand, though the government has stated that 265 seats in private medical colleges would be filled up through CENTAC, yet there is no clarity on the number of seats in each college as PIMS, the second most preferred college, is still fighting the legal battle.
Since the entire schedule of counselling not only for medical admissions, but also the subsequent admissions in dental, veterinary, engineering and other courses are determined on the basis IGMCRI, the admissions remain in disarray.
Call for transparency in counselling
Puducherry: Pondicherry State Students and Parents Welfare Association have sought for more transparency in CENTAC counselling for admissions to professional colleges by getting clarity on the seat allocation and the fee structure in each of the colleges. In a petition to Chief Secretary, V Balasubramanian, President of the Association stated that neither is there any clarity on the number of seats in each of the self financing college nor are the seats earmarked for reservation under various categories in the colleges. Even the fees structure for each of the private colleges have not been put up. The informationshould have been intimated to the students to facilitate the students to take a decision based on their financial stand.