Date:20/09/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/09/20/stories/2003092005190400.htm

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

Counselling for medical admissions begins today

By Our Special Correspondent

VIJAYAWADA SEPT. 19. NTR University of Health Sciences has made elaborate arrangements for admitting students to medical and dental colleges in the State on its campus here from September 20 to 25. The university will fill nearly 2,000 MBBS seats available in 10 Government and nine private medical colleges and also for BDS seats in 12 dental colleges in the State. The counselling will begin here at 8 a.m. tomorrow and admissions will be made on the basis of rank obtained in EAMCET up to September 25.

Admissions under special categories will be made from the afternoon of September 25 and completed on September 26. As private colleges are planning to admit students either at Hyderabad or Vijayawada on September 26 and 27, the university would fill any leftover seats due to sliding on September 29 and 30.

Speaking to newspersons here today, the university Vice-Chancellor, G. Shamsunder, said that the admission process should be completed by September 30 as per the Supreme Court and the schedule had been worked out keeping this in view. Uncertainty haunted over admission of students to new medical colleges proposed by NRIs at Mangalagiri and also six private medical colleges at Eluru, Karimnagar, Sangareddi, Medi City, Katur and Kuppam, which are awaiting renewal of recognition. They should get the recognition latest by September 28 or forego one academic year, he said. About 270 additional seats have been made available in five colleges as they fulfilled the criteria for recognition. Warangal medical college, however, lost 20 seats in readjustment. He said that NTR UHS had been conducting counselling for medical admissions at Hyderabad all these years. It wanted to shift the venue for admissions to its headquarters at Vijayawada for the first time this year. (Admissions were made at Vijayawada in 1996 but faced several legal problems necessitating re-counselling at Hyderabad).

The University has made elaborate arrangements for registration of students, verification of certificates, categorisation etc. It arranged eight computers for giving admissions to students simultaneously. A bank counter had been provided at the counselling centre to enable the selected candidates pay their fee immediately. He said that the Government medical colleges at Kakinada, Kurnool, Tirupati and Warangal were having 39 NRI seats for the last four or five years. As the Government felt the need to extend this benefit to all the colleges, it sanctioned three or four self-financing seats to each college instead of NRI seats.

The university would also fill 50 per cent of seats in private colleges through common counselling. The seats are available for a fee of Rs. 55,000 per year. The private colleges, would, however be permitted to fill 25 per cent of seats on the basis of the EAMCET rank for a fee of Rs. 2 lakh per year. The remaining 25 per cent seats can be filled up under the management quota for a fees that they can fix themselves.