Puducherry: Ist round of Centac Counselling leaves 3 Govt and 16 private college seats vacant

Puducherry: The Centralized Admission Committee (CENTAC), conducted counselling saw 3 MBBS seats in the only Government Medical College and Hospital and 16 others in 3 private medical colleges continue to remain vacant, after the 2^nd day of the 1^st round of counselling in Puducherry on Sunday.

The 2^nd day saw 711 candidates called for counselling by the committee of which 76 students attended and 45 were allotted seats in government and private colleges. The selection was based on category, merit and availability of seats.

A directive was issued to students to join the concerned colleges by July 31 and deposit the fee with Centac on or before July 28, in the form of a demand draft, drawn in favour of the concerned colleges.

The seats that continue to remain vacant or have fallen vacant after the first counselling round will be taken up during the second round of counselling.

The seats that fell vacant during the first round of counselling will be taken up during the second round in the respective category. The committee will announce the schedule for the second round of counselling shortly.

The vacancies that have emerged after the Ist round of counselling will exclude the 8 blocked by the Madras High Court after it gave an order in favour of they being admitted for the academic year 2017-18.

Justice T S Sivagnanam while directing secretary (health), secretary (higher education) and director (health and family welfare services) of Puducherry government to reserve five MBBS seats for the academic year 2017-18 observed, "Centac has taken up certain stringent measures to regulate the admission process following the intervention of the Lt Governor (Kiran Bedi)".

"The admission to the first year MBBS courses for the year 2017-18 has come under a scanner and at the intervention of the Lt governor of Union territory of Puducherry, Centac has taken up a certain stringent measure to regulate the admission process," he observed.

Justice K Ravichandra Babu in another simultaneous order has directed the three concerened admission authorities to block three MBBS seats for the academic year 2017-18.

Centac has also invited applications from non-resident Indian candidates for admission into MBBS and BDS courses for the academic year 2017-18. Applications can be downloaded by them from the committee's website www.centaconline.in.

July 26 is the date for submitting these applications by the candidates. The hard copies of applications to be in before July 31.