The last-minute change in the counselling procedure for medical PG degree and diploma admissions not only led to delay by three days in beginning the process, but it also forced the authorities to revise their earlier schedules causing a lot of inconvenience to the rank holders.
The counselling began two and a half hours behind schedule at 11.30 a.m. on the first day on Thursday. The Dr. NTR University of Health Sciences officials could fill just 63 seats, though they had called non-service candidates up to 200th rank and service candidates up to the 1,800th rank as per the first schedule.
As there was limited time, the officials were forced to give a go-by to the earlier schedules and call all the candidates to attend the counselling from Friday. A candidate, who was earlier asked to attend counselling on May 1, would now be forced to make himself or herself available right from Friday.
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Totally 1,619 seats in PG degree and diploma courses had to be filled in the three university areas of Andhra, Sri Venkateswara and Osmania and also State-Wide Institution Siddhartha Medical College. The candidates are now getting prepared to wait for four to six days as some of them would have to wait and attend the counselling for unreserved seats as well from May 2. On the first day, 63 seats were filled comprised of 32 seats in OC category, 15 in BC, 12 in SC and four in the ST. Many complex roster point fixing procedures together with recent court order on filling local seats first would further complicate the counselling process. Most candidates with good ranks would accept a rank in local category first and they would stay back to claim the seat of their choice in the best college after giving up the seat taken earlier. This would be a chain process lengthening the entire counselling time.
University Vice-Chancellor I.V. Rao said that the counselling began on a positive note and in accordance with the recent order of the court on the issue of local seats. Except for the delay, the process was going on as per the guidelines. Considering the complexity, the university had appointed a 14-member committee to closely monitor the counselling and also there was a four-member observer team keeping a close watch on the procedures.