Telangana finally enters the National pool of Medical Seats

Hyderabad: The Telangana Government's decision to contribute to the national pool by giving up Article 371(D)'s accompanied special rights and opening its doors to a wider seat pool has been given a consenting stamp by Chief Minister, K Chandrasekhar Rao, the state Medical Education Department, and the Medical and Health Minister, C Laxma Reddy.

The proposal stating willingness on the part of Telangana to join the national pool from the ensuing academic year 2018-19, will now be tabled to the Centre. According to the decision taken by Telangana, 15% of its MBBS seats and 50 % of post-graduate medical seats will become part of the national pool. In exchange for these seats, Telangana students will be eligible to compete for national pool seats in all the states of the country.

Presently, there are 1,100 MBBS seats and 570 PG medical seats in government colleges in Telangana.

165 MBBS seats and 285 PG medical seats are available in the government national pool, enabling TS students to compete for 4,442 MBBS seats and 6,665 PG medical seats in all states across the country. The AP government which has of late also agreed to join the national pool will offer 285 MBBS seats and 415 PG seats to the national pool.

Undivided Andhra Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir were kept out of the national pool through Article 371(D) since 1975 owing to special political conditions in these states to ensure seats for domicile students. Even after the division of AP, the rule continues to remain in existence till recently, when the divided Andhra and Telangana governments decided to bring about a change in order to have more seats for their respective students to compete.

Health minister C Laxma Reddy said, "We held talks with our AP counterparts on this issue. They too favoured national pool. Since Article 371(D) is in force in both the states, we need to send a joint proposal to the Centre seeking relaxation and requesting to include both the states in the national pool. We will soon send a joint letter to the Centre," reported Deccan Chronicle