Govt to cancel 109 dental and 68 medical seats

HYDERABAD: A two-member probe panel inquiring into the lapses in conducting of counselling for admissions into private medical and dental colleges on Wednesday found glaring irregularities in the entire process.
Based on the findings, the government is likely to cancel 109 dental and 68 medical admissions in private colleges.
Health Minister K Sivaprasada Rao is expected to issue a white paper on Thursday clearing the anomalies crept into the medical admissions, and restore the seats likely to be cancelled to the candidates secured better ranks in the Eamcet.
According to sources, the committee, consisting of director general of health services, K Anji Reddy, and director of medical education, K Sashiprabha, found that the officials neither followed the rule reservation nor the merit order. All the 109 dental and 68 medical seats were filled up by overruling the rules, and the probe found, the admissions were illegal and are fit to be cancelled.
The committee could not collect information with 37 more medical admissions. This is in addition to 68 admissions made earlier contrary to the established rules. The probe found the private colleges charging exhorbitant fee for the illegal admissions and admitted open category students into the seats allocated for the backward castes.
The two-member panel came down heavily on the role of the registrar of NTR University of Health Sciences in the entire admission process.
Medical and Health Minister Kodela Sivaprasad Rao told The Times of India that the government would take stringent action against both the errant officials and college managements.
Despite clear guidelines on the counselling process, the college managements have violated the rules and regulations, he said.
The minister said the managements had not submitted the vacancy position after the sliding of seats, which was not taken seriously by the university officials. The approval of new colleges during the counselling process had resulted in some of the students, who had earlier settled for a B category seats, finding place in the merit list of a new college, he said.
Meanwhile, the government has approached the Supreme Court seeking to extend the dead line for the counselling from September 30 to November 30 and the case would come up before the apex court on Thursday.
The government has already prepared white paper on the medical admissions and would release it on Thursday, the minister said.