Chennai: Tamil Nadu health minister Ma Subramanian has urged the Centre to surrender more than 80 vacant MBBS seats, including 16 seats in government medical colleges, to the state quota. He also urged the Centre to extend the last date for MBBS admissions and permit Tamil Nadu to conduct further rounds of counselling to fill these seats.
This year, 83 MBBS seats in Tamil Nadu besides three others in AIIMS Madurai are vacant after three rounds of counselling. These seats will go wasted if vacancies are not filled.
In a letter to Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya, Subramanian said, “Each MBBS seat is coveted and is a precious national resource and there are lakhs of students waiting to get these seats.”
Even though the classes have commenced for MBBS and BDS courses, these students can be accommodated by way of conducting special sessions for them, he said.
Tamil Nadu has completed four rounds of counselling completely in coordination with the Medical Counselling Committee (MCC) and the Directorate General of Health Services. It completed counselling by September 30.
Subramanian said all the MBBS seats under state quota in the government medical colleges and government quota seats in self-financing medical colleges were filled by the state government. However, 16 seats under the all India quota belonging to the prestigious government medical colleges in Tamil Nadu are still remaining vacant. Also, three seats in AIIMS Madurai, 50 seats in deemed universities and 17 seats (management quota) in self-financing medical colleges are also vacant.
“We are waiting for the Centre’s response to our letter,” he said.
