E-Paper
DCI lowers cut-off to fill vacant MDS seats
As 35 of the total 147 MDS state quota seats remained vacant after four rounds of counselling conducted by the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS), Faridkot, including a stray round of counselling which ended on Wednesday
Faridkot
Facing shortage of eligible candidates to fill all 158 master of dental surgery (MDS) seats in 12 dental colleges across the state, the Dental Council of India (DCI) has lowered the minimum qualifying marks and percentile for admission.
The union ministry of health and family welfare has lowered the qualifying cut-off percentile for NEET-MDS by 23.029 percentile for each category (general, SC, ST, OBC and handicapped).
As 35 of the total 147 MDS state quota seats remained vacant after four rounds of counselling conducted by the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences (BFUHS), Faridkot, including a stray round of counselling which ended on Wednesday. No candidate reached Guru Gobind Singh Medical College at Faridkot on Wednesday for the stray round of counselling for admissions to the MDS courses. Of the total 11 all-India quota MDS seats, four were reverted to the state last month.
Following the cut in the percentile, the BFUHS will hold an extended stray round of counselling to fill the vacant seats. “No student participated in the stray round of counselling, so the MDS seats are left vacant in some colleges. Now, the medical university will hold fifth round of counselling with lower cut-off criteria to fill vacant MDS seats,” said BFUHS registrar Nirmal Ouseppachan.
The qualifying percentile for the MDS has been lowered from 50 to 26.971 for the general category. For the SC/BC and handicapped candidates, the qualifying percentile has been reduced from 40 to 16.971 and 45 to 21.971, respectively.
The cut-off score for the general category candidates has been reduced from 259 to 185 marks. For the SC/ST and handicapped candidates, the revised cut-off score lowered from 227 to 152 and 243 to 170 marks, respectively.
Though the result of NEET-MDS was declared on December 31, 2020, the admission process is yet to be completed due to the lockdown.
