Admission to medical and dental course seats in deemed or private universities started on Thursday, after the Supreme Court cleared the way. The SC clearly stated that deemed universities would have to admit only those students whom it had already taken in before September 16. The rest of their vacant seats will be filled by the State, and the admission process has been extended till October 7. This means that deemed institutions are not bound to restrict admissions to students domiciled in Maharashtra.
Students have been given until noon, September 30, to cancel (without penalty) private seats they have accepted and seek admission in deemed universities. After that, will have to pay the entire tuition fees as penalty. To help students, the commissioner of the Common Entrance Test (CET) cell, Chandrasekhar Oak, has directed institutions to return original documents and fees to students by 2 p.m., September 30.
But private medical college seats still seem elusive, despite the clear court order.
“I saw parents roaming with wads of notes in medical campuses, discussing seats with agents, who clearly tell them that you don’t need marks to get seats here,” complained parent Ruiee Kapoor. Another parent, Sudha Shenoy, confirmed this, and said that there were many cancellations in private colleges — after admissions to deemed universities opened up, and when some students gave up seats thanks to getting seats elsewhere — but the private colleges were concealing the actual number of vacant seats. “A parent saw a medical college register showing 30 medical seat cancellations,” she said, “but the website continued to display just one seat as vacant.” Ms. Shenoy, with other parents of medical school aspirants, had won a tough battle in courts to reserve 85per cent of seats for students domiciled in Maharashtra.
Wednesday saw students desperately trying to apply to private medical colleges. Many students complained that they were not able to even apply for admissions online. “Mails would bounce back or were being blocked,” says Mahendra Choudhari, a parent.”
Colleges blamed technical problems like server overloads and blocking by service providers, but students and parents were sceptical.
Separate merit list
Meanwhile, a separate merit list of candidates under the Maharashtra Karnataka Border reserved category was also released. Students from this category were to join on September 29. Personal counselling was organised for them on Thursday at the Directorate of Medical Education, to help students who had the necessary original documents fill up the vacant seats immediately.
According to a a note on the CET site, admissions to other medical courses — Homeopathy, Ayurvedic, Unani, Physiotherapy, Audiology and Speech Language Therapy, Prosthetics and Orthotics’ and even Science (Nursing) — may be held in the first week of October.
The writer is a freelance journalist
