The government will impose a 'heavy penalty' on those who surrender government quota medical seats at the last moment after the final mop-up round of NEET-UG counselling, Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar said on Monday.
He told the Legislative Council that some private medical colleges misuse loopholes in the laws, which he said will be rectified.
"We have written to the Centre to develop a unified national portal having details of allotted and cancelled seats, but that is not yet done," he said.
Sudhakar was responding to a question by BJP member N Ravikumar, who said that surrendering of medical seats is a "big mafia and business".
"Some colleges give money to meritorious students to surrender the seats at the last moment, and sell them for a huge sum of money later. Poor, meritorious students are badly affected due to this," he said.
Sudhakar said private colleges also have government quota seats and the government gives the list of students on the basis of merit for admission to each seat remaining unallotted as per a Supreme Court ruling.
Picking holes in Sudhakar's reply, Ravikumar asked how 1,227 medical seats in 2019-20 and 2020-21 remained unallotted when there is such a heavy competition to get medical seats.
Sudhakar replied that they were NRI and management quota seats, and no government quota seat was unallotted.
Also, the minster said the process of giving 10% EWS quota in admission to different courses and government jobs was on, adding that the backward classes department was the competent authority for this.
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(Published 13 December 2021, 16:52 IST)
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