A decrease of 200 seats for the MBBS course in medical colleges of Uttarakhand has resulted in a big loss for the students of the State aspiring to become doctors. This year there are only 600 seats for the MBBS in the medical colleges of the state as compared to 800 last year. Taking a strict action after finding various anomalies, the apex body of medical education in the country, the Medical Council of India (MCI) has refused to approve admissions in the Subharati Medical College which had 150 seats and reduced the number of medical seats in the Himalayan Institute, Jollygrant from 150 last year to 100 this year.
The registrar and the controller of examinations of HNB Medical University, Vijay Juyal said that competition among the students would be tough this year due to reduction in number of seats. He said that the first round of state level counseling would be done after the All India Counseling slated to start on June 12.
Among the Government medical colleges the Government Doon Medical College (GDMC) has 150 seats while Government Medical Colleges of Haldwani and Srinagar have 100 seats each. In the private medical colleges, the Sri Guru Ram Rai (SGRR) medical college Dehradun has 150 seats while Himalayan Institute Jollygrant has 100 seats for the MBBS course. It is worth mentioning here that the these medical colleges have 15 percent seats reserved for All India quota while remaining 85 percent seats are reserved for state quota. The seats of state quota would be filled by the domiciled candidates of state. The state has two dental colleges also the Seema Dental and Uttaranchal Dental colleges and both of them have 100 seats each.
Experts opine that the students scoring more than 500 marks out of 720 in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) would be able to get admission in the government medical colleges in general category this year. The cut off marks for the SC and ST candidates could hover around 300 in the Government medical colleges while for the private medical colleges it could go down to 200.