Opposition walkout over medical admission issue

Thiruvananthapuram: Congress-led UDF opposition members walked out of the Kerala Assembly protesting against the alleged lapses by the government in the process of MBBS admission.

However, Health Minister K K Shylaja maintained that there was no lapses or confusion in the admission process and it would be completed before the scheduled date of August 31.

She also denied the opposition charge that the admission process was "deliberately delayed" to help self-financing private colleges to make spot admissions and accept capitation amount.

"The admission process will be completed in all colleges by August 31. There is no crisis or confusion in the medical education sector as alleged by the opposition," she said.

"I want to make it very clear that the government will fill the spot admission if there is any vacancy and that seats will not be left to private college managements," she said.

The minister said 90 per cent of the seats in government medical colleges had been filled in the first allotment phase that ended in the first week of this month.

The private colleges could also participate in the second allotment process that started on August five, she said replying to a notice for adjournment motion by former health minister V S Sivakumar (Cong).

Shylaja said from this academic year, there would be only NEET merit list for medical admissions, including in the private colleges and there would not be any state list.

The fee, fixed by the Fee Regulatory Committee was "provisional", she said, adding, that the government has no say on it.

The government was able to stop the self-financing medical colleges from charging exorbitant fee and accepting capitation amount this time, the minister said.

Attacking the government, opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala said though the government had enough time to complete the allotment process, as the entire admission was to be from the NEET list, they "delayed it deliberately" to help the self-financing colleges.

He also sought the intervention of Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to end the "stalemate" in the admission process in the interests of hundreds of students waiting for admission.

Hitting hard at Shylaja, Chennithala also wanted the Chief Minister to shift her from the Health Ministry to protect the interests of students.

Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan disallowed the notice for the debate after the reply of the minister, leading to walkout by the opposition members.