Chennai: Tamil Nadu has registered an 80% cut in vacancies for undergraduate dental seats in 2023 compared to 2022, according to the directorate of medical education.
In 2023, of 1,950 BDS seats, 122 were vacant after counselling compared to 557 seats in 2002. “This is the first time we have recorded vacancies below 6% after the introduction of NEET,” said a senior official. In 2017, 46% of the 1,760 BDS seats offered through state counselling were vacant. In the next two years, it was around 40%,” the official said.
The vacancy was close to 30% in 2022 and officials along with college authorities worked out a plan to reduce vacancies.
First, most self-financing dental colleges surrendered the maximum number of seats to the government quota, where the fee was 2.5 lakh. “Several colleges reduced it further to 1 lakh for almost all candidates. So, most students were willing to take the seat,” the official said.
In addition, several students said job opportunities for dentists would improve as the health department had opened a new dental college in Pudukottai. Tamil Nadu has a policy to start one medical college in every district, and TN now has medical colleges in 32 of 38 districts. However, the government did not make efforts to start new dental colleges. The Government Dental College and Hospital, which was established in 1952-53, was the only medical college with 100 undergraduate seats until the state took over Annamalai University.
According to the Dental Council of India there are 32 dental colleges in Tamil Nadu, including 21 self-financing medical college under the TN Dr MGR Medical University.
