500 super speciality medical seats vacant in Telangana

Hyderabad: Even after the second round of counselling for Neet-super-speciality, 500 seats are vacant. Karimnagar TRS MP B. Vinod Kumar has written to Union health minister J.P. Nadda requesting an extension of the counselling date until October 17.

Only 1,141 students reported to colleges for 1,969 seats for DM/M.Ch. courses. Some petitioners have moved the Supreme Court seeking more time to fill the vacant seats, reported Deccan Chronicle.

Dr T. Senthil Nathan, a petitioner and aspirant from Chennai, said, “Advocate Kapil Sibal argued for mop-up counselling for private colleges. In the mop-up counselling, only students who did not get seats in the first two rounds can participate.”

The petitioner further said the vacancies arose as many candidates blocked seats but did not join.

Aspirants from Telangana state had approached the directorate general of health services to conduct counselling or to task the Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences and Dr NTR University of Health Sciences with the job.

An aspirant said, “It’s time to reform medical education. More than half the seats are lying vacant in Tamil Nadu medical colleges as students feared to sign the service bond. We should end the bond system or lose doctors to the US and the UK.”

Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences Vice-Chancellor Dr Karunakar Reddy0 also supported the idea of the third round of counselling.

“It is very painful if so many seats are lying vacant when there is high demand for super-specialists, ” Dr Karunakar Reddy said. He pointed out that the ratio of super-specialists to the population was quite low in India.