Medical counselling for students in Tamil Nadu, other than for those under the 7.5% reservation for government school students and special categories, is all set to begin on Monday. The counselling for government school students ended on Friday and for those under special categories like students with physical disabilities, is scheduled to take place on Saturday. The Directorate of Medical Education (DME) released the schedule for the next phase of counselling on Friday. Starting on Monday, the counselling will take place in three slots every day, from Monday to Saturday, and will go on till December 4.
A total of 361 students have been called for the counselling on Monday, while the next 390 rank holders in state wise NEET (National Eligibility cum Entrance Test ) UG 2020 list have been called for counselling on Tuesday. A total of 5,441 students are expected to take part in this phase of counselling in Tamil Nadu. This is expected to fill up the MBBS and BDS seats available under the state quota in government medical colleges and private medical colleges.
As of Friday evening, all the MBBS seats under the 7.5% quota for government school students in the state-funded medical colleges and private medical colleges were filled. As far as BDS seats are concerned, six seats were remaining at the end of counselling on Friday, according to the data available with the DME.
A total of 313 seats for MBBS and 92 seats for BDS were up for grabs by students of Tamil Nadu government schools, who had cleared NEET UG 2020. While some students were elated to have gotten into medical colleges of their choice, several students were disappointed after they secured seats in private medical colleges and could not afford the fees. Many cited this and said that they were unable to accept the admission.
Following this, the DME issued a circular to all the private medical and dental colleges in the state to not deny admissions due to non-payment of fees to the students who have secured seats under the horizontal reservation of 7.5%.