With this year’s medical counselling set to be held at the Jawaharlal Nehru outdoor stadium in the city, officials of the Directorate of Medical Education (DME) said preparations have been made, keeping in mind the requirement of social distancing.
Five years ago, the DME shifted the venue for counselling from the Government Kilpauk Medical College to the Government Omandurar Multi Super Speciality Hospital. Currently, the hospital in Omandurar Estate is being used exclusively to care for COVID-19 patients.
In another departure from the norm, the counselling will not begin with sessions for special categories that include persons with disabilities, eminent sportspersons and the wards of former servicemen. Instead, the first session has been allotted for students from government schools, for whom the State government has introduced special horizontal reservation. This year, 951 candidates have applied under the 7.5% quota for these seats. As of date, a total of 313 MBBS seats and 92 seats in dental colleges are available under the State government quota.
Counselling for government school students will begin at 9 a.m. on Thursday, and will extend all through Friday. Counselling for the general category will begin once all the seats under the government schools reservation category have been covered, officials said.
Counselling for special category candidates will be held on November 21, selection secretary G. Selvarajan said. The seat matrix for the special reservation for government school students was released on Tuesday night. Medical colleges with 250 seats, like MMC, Stanley, and those in Madurai and Tirunelveli, will allot 16 seats each. ESIC Coimbatore will admit five students and ESIC Chennai four.
Due to the COVID-19 situation, a few changes have been made in the method of counselling. Plastic sheets have been placed on tables to serve as barricades between the counselling officials and the candidates and their parents. According to officials, 10 teams will be present to scrutinise each and every certificate produced by the candidates.
“LED screens have been placed outside the venue to provide updates on the counselling process,” Director of Medical Education R. Narayana Babu said.
