This academic year the State has 1,758 seats in PG programmes across its 22 medical colleges. Fifty percent of these seats will be surrendered to the All India Quota, said A. Edwin Joe, Director of Medical Education.
“We converted 393 seats to master’s degree programmes and got permission to add 128 seats that we had applied for. Last year, we gained around 500 seats and this year we have added 474 seats. Diabetology is a diploma course as we don’t have a corresponding master’s degree,” an official said.
Medical education officials see the improvement in seats as an opportunity to build capacity in the State. “Students from across the country will study under the All India Quota, which will benefit all,” the official pointed out.
The State has sought 350 seats for the MBBS programme, in addition to its existing 2,900 seats.
These include 150 seats for the upcoming Karur Medical College and an increase of 100 seats each in Madurai and Tirunelveli medical colleges. “The increase would ensure that one in every two UG students in these medical colleges will get into PG programmes and that is a healthy ratio,” Dr. Joe said.
The first round of online counselling to allot AIQ PG seats will begin on Friday.
Candidates will get 10 days to register their choices and six days to lock in their choice, which ends at 5 p.m. on March 24.
Seat allotment will be done for the next two days and the results will be declared on March 27. Candidates will get until April 3 to report to their respective colleges. The DME has started issuing applications and the last date for submitting filled-in forms online is March 20. Candidates must submit hard copies of the filled-in forms before 5 p.m. on March 22.
