HYDERABAD: Medical colleges in Telangana established after 2014 will now have to allocate 100% of their MBBS seats under the ‘competent authority’ quota to students from the State. With this, a total of 1,820 MBBS seats will be available for students from Telangana annually.
The State government on Tuesday released an order (GO No. 72) issued on July 3, amending the Telangana State Medical Colleges Admission Rules. This amendment is in line with the AP Reorganisation Act and Article 371D. Previously, only 85% of the seats were reserved for local students, while the remaining 15% were unreserved.
Among the 2,850 seats available in the 20 medical colleges prior to the formation of Telangana, 1,895 seats were allocated under the Competent Authority quota. Within this quota, 15% (280 seats) were unreserved. Students from both Telangana and Andhra Pradesh had the opportunity to compete for these seats. Unfortunately, this often resulted in Telangana students losing out.
To address this issue, the State government has amended the rules by limiting the unreserved quota to only the 20 medical colleges that were existing in 2014, while exempting the 36 new medical colleges that were established post-bifurcation from this provision.
As a result, 520 additional medical seats have been exclusively allocated for Telangana students.It is important to note that Telangana students were already benefiting from the existing local reservation policy, which reserved 85% (1,300)of ‘B category’ MBBS seats.It is worth mentioning that the All India quota of 15% seats in the new medical colleges remains unaffected. This provision allows students from all over the country to secure admissions based on merit.
Health Minister T Harish Rao on Tuesday tweeted that it was a proud moment for the State as 43%, (900) of the 2,118 MBBS seats that have increased in government medical colleges in India for 2023-24 belong to Telangana. “This is a testament to Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s vision of Arogya Telangana wherein Medical Education is thriving. These numbers will further go up once the remaining medical colleges get approval (sic),” he tweeted.