Even as medical and dental aspirants in Maharashtra are claiming the seats allotted to them, some colleges are worried as not enough students are taking admission.
Many deemed (autonomous) institutes are not happy with the response they have received in the first round of seat allotment done by the Directorate General of Health Sciences (DGHS) as they’ve not been able to fill many seats.
“Till 2015, we conducted admissions on the institute level and never had enough seats left for a third round. This year the response for the first round itself is very not great as we have more than 50% seats still vacant,” said the spokesperson of a Pune deemed medical institute. He added that most deemed institutes across the country were facing similar problems and were hoping to get a better response in the next round, the list for which will be announced on August 8.
Shashank Dalvi, vice-chancellor of Pravara Institute of Medical Sciences in Ahmednagar, said that one of the reasons for the large number of vacant seats could be because admissions to deemed institutes started before the common admissions for government and private institutes. “Deemed institutes are usually the second option after government so whoever has found their names in the state seat allotment round, they have withdrew admission (from the deemed institutes),” he said.
Last year, a centralised admissions system through National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) to all medical and dental institutes was forced on all institutes—public, private as well as deemed. Various writ petitions were filed, by private as well as deemed institutes in Maharashtra, to get exemption from Common Admission Process (CAP) conducted by the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER).
{{/usCountry}}Last year, a centralised admissions system through National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) to all medical and dental institutes was forced on all institutes—public, private as well as deemed. Various writ petitions were filed, by private as well as deemed institutes in Maharashtra, to get exemption from Common Admission Process (CAP) conducted by the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER).
{{/usCountry}}The Supreme Court of India gave the final word on this process in May this year, making it very clear that admissions to seats in public and private institutes will be conducted by DMERs of respective states whereas the DGHS will allot seats in all deemed institutes and those under the All India Quota (AIQ) for candidates from outside a particular state.
There are a total of 1,800 medical and dental seats in deemed institutes - one of every four medical seat - across Maharashtra. “The first round of allotment wasn’t as per our expectation, but we hope the same will pick up pace in the second round. Since admissions to government quota and AIQ seats are on-going, we hope to attract more students to our institutes,” said Dalvi.
As per the admission schedule shared by DGHS, the second round of seat allotment will be announced on August 8, to be followed by a mop-up round (re-allotting vacant seats) on August 18. All seats that remain vacant after this round will be handed over to respective institutes by August 27 to be filled up at the institute level. “We don’t want any vacant seats this year,” added Dalvi.