Rules get teeth: Dental seats filled as students fear no second chance

HYDERABAD: Rules such as disallowing candidates from appearing for further phases of counselling if they do accept the seats allotted to them, and debarring them for three years from MBBS and BDS counselling, has paid off well. Officials said that the move has ensured that a majority of the candidates allotted seats in dental colleges submitted their joining report fearing adverse consequences.
According to authorities at the Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences (KNRUHS), which is conducting counselling on behalf of the state, unlike other years this time more than 400 candidates have already joined their respective colleges.
"All these years there were no restrictions and candidates also behaved as if it was their right to block seats during counselling. Because of this, seats went unfilled. Eventually managements converted them into management quota seats," said B Karunakar Reddy, vice-chancellor, KNRUHS. He said that the implementation of the rule (GO Ms No 114) would also help filter candidates for the counselling process.
"More than 17, 000 candidates have applied for counselling and out of them 14, 000 are eligible to take part. We hardly have 2,000 medical seats and 1,500 dental seats. So we want to ensure that no one blocks a seat and deprives other candidates of securing one," Reddy said. While releasing the notification to fill seats through the third phase, varsity authorities have asked candidates to exercise their web options carefully as they won't get another chance mark their preferences.
"Once the candidates exercise their options, within days we will allot seats. In the fourth phase same options will be considered to allot seats. Candidates will not be given another chance to exercise web options," the V-C said.