Change in admission policy, delay led to high vacancies in PG medical seats

As many as 295 of the 1,928 postgraduate (PG) medical seats across government and private medical colleges in Maharashtra are lying vacant even after five rounds of seat allotment and four all-India quota (AIQ) rounds this year. As of May 3, a total of 1,633 seats have been confirmed. While 10% of the 295 seats remain unclaimed in government medical colleges, 22.8% are vacant in private institutes.

Admissions to medical courses have been hit the worst this year, especially the ongoing PG medical admissions. Experts have blamed the delay of nearly eight months for the 15% vacancy in PG medical seats in the state. Such is the delay that the entrance exam for the next academic year (2022-23) is scheduled to take place before the admission rounds conclude for the course this time.

“As of now the cut-off date for PG admissions is May 7, but there’s a chance that this deadline will be extended. We are prepared to conduct as many rounds as needed to ensure that every seat is taken,” said an official from the state common entrance test cell.

He said there were enough applicants for these seats, but many were also trying to appear for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-PG) this month to better their score and apply for admissions in the next academic year, which is leading to several seats going vacant this year.

While the delay in admissions is one part of the problem, experts have also attributed the high seat vacancy to the change in admission rules to AIQ seats introduced by the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) this year.

As per rule, AIQ and state admission rounds were to be conducted simultaneously because vacant seats in AIQ after the second round were surrendered to respective states for state quota rounds. MCC had in December 2021, however, released a notification stating that 2021-22 academic year onwards four AIQ rounds would be conducted by MCC itself – AIQ 1, AIQ 2, mop-up round 1, and stray vacancy round. No seats would be surrendered to state admission bodies, MCC said.

AIQ rounds are conducted to fill up 15% seats in government and private UG medical institutes and 50% seats in government and private PG medical institutes.

“There’s been complete mismanagement by MCC this year due to this new AIQ admission rule, where massive number of seats were blocked in both UG and PG medical courses. The authorities should have at least returned vacant seats to respective state after these four rounds; these seats would not have remained vacant,” said Sudha Shenoy, parent of a medical student, and an activist fighting for the rights of medical aspirants.

Implementation of this rule has hit medical aspirants in states with higher number of government medical institutes like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Maharashtra. On the contrary, students from states with fewer government medical institutes have benefited from this move.

“Instead of filling up seats, the change in rule has made way for a higher seat vacancy which will not be filled up no matter how many rounds of seat allotment are conducted. This loophole needs to be fixed so that precious seats in PG medical don’t go vacant again next year,” Brijesh Sutaria, parent of a final-year UG medical student, said.

Meanwhile, the All India Medical Students Association on Thursday moved the supreme court to postpone the NEET-PG 2022 exam scheduled for May 21. One of the reasons for this move, students said, was that the all-India entrance test would clash with the ongoing counselling for NEET-PG 2021 batch.