“The seats are getting vacant every year. The government realized that as a one-time measure, in the larger context of things, we can admit students with zero percentile as well. It will have no precedence. It is being taken up in a test case. After all, the entrance test was not conducted to eliminate students, but only to grade them,” said a senior health ministry official.
With 748 super specialty seats vacant after four rounds of admission this year, the Medical Counseling Committee (MCC) took this drastic step. As a one-time measure, any candidate who appeared in NEET Super Specialty 2021 exam, irrespective of his score, can participate in the special mop-up admission round.
When the admissions started this year, the two rounds conducted by MCC received a cold response. This led to a special mop-up round with a 15% reduction in the qualifying bar. Still, there were not many takers. Now the second mop-up round is open for all the candidates. There are about 4,500 super specialty medical seats in India. There are more vacancies in surgical branches as compared to clinical branches.
Dr Praveen Shingare, former head of the Directorate of Medical Education and Research, said, “Candidates have realized that having a broad specialty gives them a good career and money. Hence, many do not want to spend much time in pursuing super specialty courses. ” (DMER). “Looking at the Grant Medical College, 80 per cent of the seats in the super specialty are lying vacant for 10 years. In GS Medical College, 40 per cent seats are vacant in the last 4-5 years. But this trend has also extended to non-surgical branches in the last three years.
The bias in selecting programs is often dictated by the idea that in the case of a surgical branch, a candidate needs to work with a team, have an operation theatre, but a clinical course requires a doctor. Allows to work independently from a clinic.
Parent representative Sudha Shenoy said the problem also lies with the long bond that candidates need to serve when they join a government college. “Any candidate who joins the super specialty program will have to be at least 30 years of age. If they have to pay a bond of 10 years, when will they start earning? Hence, government hospitals are mostly from the list of students’ choice. And when it comes. For private and deemed institutions, the fee is out of bounds for most,” Shenoy explained.