The seat allotment process for postgraduate seat aspirants in medical and dental colleges across the State was rescheduled for the second time on Sunday. The admission round will now be conducted on Monday, following daylong protests by doctors at the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) campus here.
Demand transparency
Candidates refused to participate in the seat selection process unless the RGUHS made public the seat matrix, and refused to leave the campus till late Sunday night. In response to Saturday's protests, RGUHS officials had promised to “set right the issues in the seat matrix” after candidates stormed the Registrar's Office and alleged that there were several discrepancies in the seat matrix. When the doctors returned for counselling this morning, they were agitated to find that no matrix had been published, either on the website or on the premises.
“Officials were only showing us the seat matrix once we enter the room for counselling,” said one student, accusing the university of running an “opaque and compromised” show. Seats to government medical colleges and government quota in private medical colleges are allotted through this process.
Discrepancy
Candidates seeking seats under the “in-service” quota (which includes those who have served in government posts under the State Department of Health and Family Welfare) made their choice in the morning. After some candidates attended counselling it became clear that the seat matrix now was distinctly different from what was on offer during the first round. One candidate who selected a Radiology seat in the first round, which was subsequently cancelled following a High Court order, was now getting only Anatomy or Biochemistry. “This is completely unacceptable. We cannot afford the COMED-K seats and we worked hard to clear the entrance. We will not go back till we are satisfied the process is honest,” the candidate said.
No information
Candidates alleged that though 48 new seats had been added to the matrix after the previous round was cancelled, no details were available on which course these seats were in. “There is mix-up happening and, especially in the case of private colleges, we suspect managements are holding back seats that will later be sold,” they alleged.
Meanwhile, the Consortium of Engineering, Medical and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (COMED-K), which allots private quota seats, is slated to commence counselling on Monday. This change in schedule is likely to affect the COMED-K counselling. However, no communiqué has been issued.
Explanation
RGUHS Registrar Prem Kumar said that the problem was that “in-service” candidates had been allotted more seats than what was marked for them in the first round. This, he said, was creating the confusion and resulted in huge changes in the matrix. The new seat matrix will be published on Monday, he added.
