DD bungling costs Comed-K PG seat aspirants dear

Upset students protest, lodge complaint to no avail

Unpleasant scenes were witnessed at the Comed-K counselling for postgraduate medical courses here on Friday as nearly 30 students were barred from choosing seats for their failure to bring demand drafts (DDs) drawn from nationalised banks.

Repeated, fervent pleas by the students failed to convince the Comed-K authorities, who refused to allow them to attend the seat selection process. A well-placed source said that the students, including many top-ranked ones, literally begged the Comed-K authorities to allow them to attend the counselling.

One of the affected students had secured 17th rank. Two other students were ranked 116th and 123rd.

The tough stance adopted by the Comed-K authorities stunned the students as well as their parents who broke down when their pleas were unanswered.

A S Srikanth, Chief Executive, Comed-K, defended barring the students, saying the rule cannot be relaxed for a few individuals.

“Ninety-nine percent of students have conformed to our rules. Only a small number had come up with faulty documents. We cannot bend the rules for them,” Srikanth told Deccan Herald.

The Comed-K official said that the notification issued on May 11, 2012, had clearly laid down the procedure for the PG counselling. Rule nine states: “Demand Drafts drawn only from nationalised banks in favour of Comed-K payable at Bangalore, along with original bank counterfoil (should be brought).”

The students, however, felt they got a raw deal. “We had been looking forward to this day. It is disgusting that we were barred from picking seats for such a trivial issue,” one of the students said.

The candidates first tried to reason with Comed-K officials overseeing the counselling. When their efforts failed, they approached Srikanth. They requested him to allow them to attend the counselling on humanitarian grounds.

According to Srikanth, a committee considered the students’ request and decided not to entertain it. “It would set a bad precedent,” he said.

As their last ray of hope faded, the students and their parents tried to stage a protest at the venue — NMKRV College for Women in Jayanagar. But they were hauled out of the place. A source said that the affected students then lodged a written complaint with the police who arrived later to investigate the matter. Deccan Herald, however, could not independently verify this.

Barring the said incident, the counselling went off smoothly. As many as 348 of the total 369 PG degree and diploma seats were taken. The 21 remaining seats would be available in the second round of medical counselling, scheduled for May 28.

The first student to pick a seat was Bysani Swaroop, ranked 13th, who went for a Radio-diagnosis seat at the M S Ramaiah Medical College. Abdunnisar M, ranked 18th, chose a Radio-diagnosis at the Father Muller Medical College, Mangalore. Sreejith M G, ranked 23rd, went for a General Medicine seat at the Mangalore college. Other disciplines preferred by the students were Paediatrics, Dermatology, and Obstetrics and Gynaecology.