Tamil Nadu: BDS intake of students continues even after deadline

CHENNAI: Despite the Dental Council of India deadline for admissions ending last Sunday, many colleges and deemed universities allegedly continue to admit students in the course accepting their documents, along with backdated cheques.

A recent report in TOI states that discounts upto the tune of 50% are being offered by four self-financing medical colleges and three deemed universities for BDS courses to NEET qualifiers in the state. In one case a job has also been offered in the same college to a student on completion of course.

Parents and students are being flooded with admission calls by marketing agents. Many dental institutions still have 60% of their dental seats going vacant and some premier ones have only a few vacancies.

"We are trying our best to fill the seats before September 18. Even last year some of our seats went vacant. This time it seems far worse than 2016-17," said a Dean of one of the medical college, refusing to be named.

The admission cutoff date of August 31 has now been extended to September 10 by the Dental Council. The extension has been granted this year, as many states, including Tamil Nadu, are new to the NEET-based admission process.

"No college can admit students after this. In the next one week they should process details and submit names of the students who enrolled in the course," said DCI Vice-President, Dr SM Jayakar.

"We depend on the state government to keep a tab on the admission process. If complaints against colleges are proven we will initiate action," he added.

80% of seats that lay vacant after the 3^rd counselling round by deemed universities. The State Selection Committee Secretary, G Selvarajan said 492 seats were returned to self-financing colleges after the single window counselling.

The state has 100 seats each in government dental college and state-managed Raja Muthiah Medical College and 1,710 seats in the 18 self-financing dental colleges.

The fee for government dental college was fixed at Rs 11,600. The tuition fee The statutory fee for all government quota seats in self-financing college was fixed at Rs 2.5 lakh per annum by the fee fixation Committee and they have charged Rs. 6 lakh for the management seat. The NRI seats, on the other hand, are to cost Rs 9 lakh.

Most colleges have converted NRI seats into "open category seats". "I received a message from a private college. I called the admission officer who said the college was willing to reduce the tuition to Rs 1.20 lakh per annum if we join today," said a businessman, whose son a future dental aspirant has applied to various dental colleges reports TOI.