The counselling for the admission for MBBS and BDS seats under the Government Quota seats commenced on Tuesday at Pondicherry Engineering College.
A few candidates in the special category rejected the seats of self-financing medical colleges.
Ninety three candidates appeared for the counselling for the special category seats, including the wards of Ex-Servicemen, children/grandchildren of freedom fighters, meritorious sports persons, and backward tribes. Twenty nine MBBS and nine BDS seats were allotted for the eligible candidates.
Ex Servicemen category
Under the Ex Servicemen category, first candidate of Mahe did not turn up for the counselling as she preferred to join another course and second candidate Punya Balakrishnan who scored 195.333 marks in the rank list, chose to join the MBBS in the Government-run Indira Gandhi Government Medical College and Research Institute (IGMCRI).
Ms. Balakrishnan said, “The first candidate who was my classmate did not turn up for the counselling. There was only a seat available under the Ex-servicemen quota. I am happy to get the seat in the government-run institution without any hitch. I can pursue the MBBS course without too much of a financial burden on my parents.”
Interestingly, the next candidate S. Niranjan from Karaikal who came in for counselling walked out with declaring his unwillingness to join a seat at a self-financing medical college.
Niranjan said, “I don’t want join any self-financing private medical college which will not provide quality education. Moreover, there will be lot of candidates from management quota and not all of them will be focused on studies. Moreover, if I join a self-financing college, I will have to get loan from the banks. That will be extra burden on my parents.”
Education Secretary and Chairman of Centralised Admission Committee (CENTAC) G. Ragesh Chandra personally supervised the counselling process and gave the allotment order of the seats to the candidates.
Error-free
Mr. Chandra said this year special attention has been given to make the counselling error free. We have constituted a committee of revenue officials who have done physical verification of all the certificates they have issued. They also attested the authenticity of the certificates after due field verification was done. We have verified certificates three times so that certificates obtained in fraudulent manner would be completely eradicated. We have not found any single fraudulent certificate so far.”
Over 1000 called
Over thousand candidates have been called for the general counselling for MBBS and BDS which will be conducted on Thursday. Engineering counselling is set to commence from July 10.