An 18-year-old Sri Lankan Tamil refugee has sought a seat at a government medical college and, after her application was rejected, faxed a petition to B. Anand, commissioner of rehabilitation and welfare of non-resident Tamils.
R. Nandini, from the Arachalur camp in Erode, scored a total of 1,170 in her class XII exams. Her cut-off was 197.5, and she sent an application for medical counselling.
“I did not receive any call or letter from the counselling authorities, and so, on Saturday, I went to Government Kilpauk Medical College (KMC) to find out what was happening,” she said.
Friday was the penultimate day of phase one of medical counselling, which is taking place at KMC, officials said.
At KMC, Nandini was informed that her application had been rejected as she was a refugee and that she was not eligible for a seat in medicine. While refugee students have been called for engineering counselling since 2009, medicine is still off-limits. “There is no quota for refugee students in medicine, so there is nothing we can do,” said a government official.
On Friday, post counselling, there were 62 seats left at the government medical colleges and 11 at the dental college.
