Medical college admissions in Maharashtra : Parents say state seats should go to home students

As of now, very few seats are vacant in government-run and private medical and dental institutes from the state quota, and students are hoping to get hold of seats from the all-India quota.

To ensure that maximum seats in Maharashtra’s medical and dental institutes go to students from the state, parents of medical aspirants are once again planning to approach the Supreme Court.

Parents have also approached state medical education minister Girish Mahajan for his support. (HT)

While the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) plans to surrender all vacant seats from the All India Quota (AIQ) to respective state governments to fill them up, a petition filed by students from north India is demanding that the seats be set aside for students from across the country, and not for the ones from the states where the institute is located.

“What’s the use of surrendering seats to the respective state government if they can’t fill up seats with state students? The original admission brochure also mentions that these vacant seats are for state students and we hope SC sees our point,” said Sudha Shenoy, a parent.

The state Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) recently released an updated admission schedule for medical and dental admissions in state. According to this schedule, a third seat allotment list will be released for vacant seats in government and private medical and dental institutes in Maharashtra, including the ones surrendered by DGHS from the all-India quota. “This combined list will be released on August 21, as DGHS will surrender all-India seats in a couple of days,” said Dr Pravin Shingare, director, DMER. He added that after the third seat allotment list, a mop-up round will also be conducted to fill up any remaining ones. “The SC will announce their final order in this matter in the next four weeks, in the meantime we can go ahead with allotting AIQ seats to students from the state,” added Shingare.

Parents have also approached state medical education minister Girish Mahajan for his support.