PG medical counselling: Same old story about missing seats

Securing postgraduate medical (MD and MS) seats in the State this year has been a long, tough battle and students realised it once again, during the third round of counselling on Sunday.

Originally scheduled for Saturday, the PG medical counselling was postponed by a day owing to delay in dental counselling.

But as soon as it began on Sunday, aspirants were in for a shock at the Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) office, the venue, when they found that several seats were missing from the matrix.

Thereafter, the students and some parents raised slogans against KEA officials as well as the Medical Education Minister, Sharanprakash Patil.

According to students, the missing seats are from streams which are in demand.

One of them said on the condition of anonymity: “There is no transparency in seat allotment.

I am eyeing a seat in anaesthesia. I was not satisfied with the seat allotted to me in the second round, hence I surrendered it and chose to attend the third round of counselling.

However, on Sunday I found out that the seat I had surrendered was not in the matrix at all! As per rules, the candidate next to me should be able to get it.”

Students said they had counted at least 19 seats that were missing from the matrix but suspected that more seats had been omitted.

“These seats are worth at least Rs one crore each. After a long-drawn-out argument with the officials, seven missing seats were added. We have no clue about the remaining seats,” said another candidate who attended the third round of counselling.

Not just this, there are several other problems with the counselling, the students claimed.

In some cases, they said, the in-service and the non-in service seats had been mixed up. One non in-service candidate was allotted an in-service seat.

In another bizarre case, one student was allotted two seats, they alleged. Some of them have now decided to take legal recourse.

A total of 251 seats were up for grabs at the third round of medical counselling.

The in-charge director of Medical Education, Dr S S Harsoor, said some seats could not be added to the matrix as they were stuck in litigations.

“Students know this. There is no other lacuna,” he told Deccan Herald and rubbished complaints about mix up between in-service and non in-service seats.

The government is likely to conduct a fourth round of counselling for the all India seats which are surrendered to the State.

“Karnataka's share in the all India seats that remain unfilled will be surrendered. We will hold another round of counselling for these seats,” he said.