JOIN USMed, dental students protest seeking common counselling
Postgraduate medical and dental students staged a protest outside the office of Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) on Saturday, demanding admission to post-graduate (PG) medical and dental seats in all colleges in the state should be through a common counselling.
Hundreds of candidates had gathered on the first day of the document verification at KEA. The protesters said that though the Union government has done away with multiple tests through NEET-PG, private colleges and deemed universities are exploiting them by holding multiple counsellings.
Students demanded that the state government should hold talks with the colleges part of Consortium of Medical Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (Comed-K) and deemed universities and, ensure common counselling this year.
Students also demanded that seven years’ domicile should be made mandatory for candidates to be eligible for the PG seats in the state quota. They want to prevent students who have completed MBBS and BDS from outside the state getting a PG seat in Karnataka. The protest was later withdrawn after senior officials from the medical education department intervened.
According to a senior official with the department of medical education, the state is yet to finalise on the method of counselling. As of now, counselling would be conducted separately by the deemed universities, private colleges (Comed-K) and KEA.
Dr Sharanprakash Patil, minister, department of medical education said, “The government is considering several factors such as concession of seats and deciding on a form of counselling accordingly.”
“To ensure transparency, we are looking at a common platform for counselling. It would be conducted by separate entities as planned before. However, this would be done at a common place on different dates to help the students. The entire process would be monitored by the government," he added.