Maharashtra: 50 percent seats at deemed instiutes lie vacant after Ist Counselling

Mumbai: The Directorate General of Health Sciences (DGHS) conducted Ist round of counselling and seat allotments has left many a deemed institutes disappointed as not many admissions have come forth. However, they have their hopes pinned on the second round, the results of which shall be announced on August 8.

Despite students of Maharashtra claiming their allotted seats deemed colleges are worried about the percentage response of students seeking admission with the deemed institutes.

“Till 2015, we conducted admissions on the institute level and never had enough seats left for a third round. This year the response for the first round itself is very not great as we have more than 50% seats still vacant,” said the spokesperson of a Pune deemed medical institute.

Deemed institutes all over the country seem to have met the same fate, he added.

Attributing reasons to this sudden shortfall in deemed institute admissions, the Pravara Institute of Medical Sciences, Ahmednagar,Vice-Chancellor, Shashank Dalvi, said that the process for deemed institutions starting earlier than private and government institutes could be one of the reasons for the shortfall in admissions being witnessed. “Deemed institutes are usually the second option after government so whoever, has found their names in the state seat allotment round, they have withdrawn admission (from the deemed institutes),” he explained.

Private as well as deemed institutes in Maharashtra, had flooded the courts with writs seeking exemption from, the Common Admission Process (CAP), conducted by the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER). A centralised admissions system through National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET), to all medical and dental institutes was forced upon all institutes—public, private as well as, deemed last year.

However, this year the Supreme Court came up with a final decision in May, stating that admissions to seats in public and private institutes will be conducted by DMERs of respective states, whereas, the DGHS will allot seats to deemed institutes and those under the All India Quota (AIQ) for candidates from outside a particular state.

Deemed institutes carry a seat strength of 1,800 medical and dental seats - one of every fourth medical seat - across Maharashtra.

“The first round of allotment wasn’t as per our expectation, but we hope the same will pick up pace in the second round. Since admissions to government quota and AIQ seats are on-going, we hope to attract more students to our institutes,” said Dalvi.

The DGHS admission schedule has announced, the second round of seat allotment on August 8. This is to be followed by a mop-up round (re-allotting vacant seats) on August 18. All vacant seats after this round will be handed over to the respective institutes by August 27 and are to be filled by the colleges themselves. “We don’t want any vacant seats this year,” added Dalvi, while speaking to the HT.