Now MD, MS aspirants seek exemption from Article 371 D

Vijaywada: With Super specialty courses having been granted exemption from Article 371D for medical admissions in colleges of other states, post graduate entrants seem to be following suit by seeking exemption from the article and calling for the opening of admissions for post graduate students to colleges of other states. The state government has in a written communication to the Central Health Minister J P Nadda and other officials asked for Andhra Pradesh being made part of the national pool quota.

The High Court in Hyderabad was recently approached by applicants to super specialty courses- DM and M.Ch stating that all open seats in institutions affiliated to NTR Health University, Vijayawada and Kaloji University of Health Sciences, Warangal were filled based upon the presidential order Article 371 D.

This article states that officials are disallowed to conduct a common counseling at the National-level for the seats coming within the jurisdiction of the Universities in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

With a majority in opposition and the High Court also passing an interim order declaring that the 15 per cent seats can be filled by anyone from the country based upon NEET rank, super specialty entrants won their round.

With the passing of this interim order nearly 67 candidates from AP secured admissions in other States’ colleges. There are 1,323 seats for DM and 1,234 seats in M.ch across the country. In AP, only 49 DM seats and 47 M.ch seats are available. If the states of AP and Telangana are included in the national pool they are bound to benefit.

With the super specialty courses having got an exemption from Article 371 D for the open category of seats (15 percent), medical aspirants are requesting the government to implement the same for PG courses like MD, MS etc.

There are 774 clinical PG seats in 7 government medical colleges across the State All clinical, nonclinical and diploma courses, seats together form a pool of 6,074 seats in the State.

A PG NEET 2018 entrant, Y Mayuri said, “Across the country, there are over 40,000 seats available for pursuing PG. Due to Article 371D, we are losing the opportunity to acquire the 15 per cent national quota which means a lot for us. We hope that from the coming year, an exemption is given for post-graduate courses too like those given to super specialty courses.”

The Department of Health and Medical Education is also planning to open up to the national pool quota which would lead to candidates from the State becoming eligible to admissions in colleges of other states.

Earlier, Minister Kamineni Srinivas Rao told TNIE, “We are planning to join in national pool quota, which in turn will benefit the State students as they can avail the opportunities in other States too. We have written a letter to Minister J P Nadda, who assured us that he will initiate it by the coming academic year. It needs to be approved by the President and also by the Parliament.”