The UT administration on Tuesday removed all exemptions for wards of serving defence personnel and ex-servicemen in the eligibility criteria for MBBS admissions, under the ‘UT pool’ category, at Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH), Sector 32.
GMCH-32 is the only college in Chandigarh that is providing an MBBS course. Out of a total of 150 MBBS seats in the college, 15% are for All India quota or ‘Central pool’ and the remaining 85% seats (115 seats) are under ‘UT pool’. The Central Pool seats are filled by the Central government while the UT pool seats are filled locally by the admission committee as per the criteria fixed by the UT administration.
For seeking admission under UT pool, the candidate must have completed 10th, 11th, and 12th from schools or colleges recognised by the Chandigarh administration and situated in the UT. Besides, candidates whose parents are residents of Chandigarh for the past five years, immediately preceding the date of application, are eligible, even if they do not meet the first criteria.
As per the third criteria those candidates are eligible whose parents are government employees in the city or central government/state government employees on deputation to Chandigarh. This includes employees working in autonomous bodies/companies in which Chandigarh administration has 20% or more share, for the past three years, immediately preceding the date of application even if they do not satisfy the above two criteria.
{{/usCountry}}As per the third criteria those candidates are eligible whose parents are government employees in the city or central government/state government employees on deputation to Chandigarh. This includes employees working in autonomous bodies/companies in which Chandigarh administration has 20% or more share, for the past three years, immediately preceding the date of application even if they do not satisfy the above two criteria.
{{/usCountry}}However, until now, these three eligibility conditions of domicile were exempted for wards of serving defence personnel/ex-servicemen.
But as per the new eligibility criteria for them, the wards must be of serving defence personnel or ex-servicemen having permanent address of UT Chandigarh in their service record, at the time of entry into defence services. The requisite certificate for permanent address issued by the respective Competent Authority will be taken as proof for this purpose. However, the other three eligibility criteria for wards of non-defence personnel remain the same.
The candidates of all four categories will have to submit an undertaking/affidavit that the candidate has not opted and claimed benefit of residence in any other state/UT other than Chandigarh after the declaration of NEET result.
The decision came after some people had challenged the exemptions in the Punjab and Haryana high court.
It was learnt that in the academic session 2021-22, as many as 20 wards of defence personnel had got admissions in MBBS, out of the total 115 seats in UT Pool, due to exemptions of the eligibility criteria. Some of them do not belong to Chandigarh or had never studied in Chandigarh schools or colleges.
“Of the 20 students, four students were meeting one or the other of the three criteria. But, 16 got admissions in merit list, due to exemptions. These exemptions were increasing unnecessary competition for UT children as the defense wards were also eligible through Central pool but UT children do not get any other opportunity, ” said Yashpal Garg, UT health secretary, adding that the new criteria has been set after UT adviser Dharampal examined the matter in detail and deliberated in a series of meetings.