With only 4,800 seats being available in 37 medical colleges across the state to a record 94,000 applications for medical courses this year, the state government could have eased the situation by pursuing the case of enhancement of seats with the MCI, but failed to do so. Such stiff competition also brings in its wake several malpractices by students and managements alike.
Though the MCI had agreed to add 500 seats in 10 government medical colleges this year, the government failed to provide the infrastructure and faculty for the purpose. Also, MCI is yet to give its nod to proposals for giving 300 seats in three new private medical colleges. If the government had pursued the case vigorously, this year there would have been 800 additional MBBS seats.
The increased applicants are giving jitters to Eamcet officials. It was found that there are a significant number of “repeaters” including students who are already pursuing courses in medical colleges.
Officials suspect foul play by the repeaters of resorting to irregularities like helping students to copy from them besides impersonation after collecting huge money from medical aspirants. In 2010, a similar scam broke out involving the repeaters and wary Eamcet officials are busy collecting the data of medicos from medical colleges to ascertain the facts.
“We are thoroughly examining the details of Eamcet medical aspirants. The data will be cross-checked with the medical colleges to find whether the Eamcet applicants and medicos are the same. The data will be referred to the police and intelligence department in case of any suspicion. We have decided to take the photographs and thumb impressions of all the Eamcet aspirants to check impersonation and malpractices of this sort,” said Mr N.V. Ramana Rao, convenor, Eamcet.
There are also complaints of some medical colleges asking their brilliant students to opt for Eamcet and cancel their seat at the last minute without taking admission. The seats that go vacant in the last minute will be surrendered to the managements, enabling them to allot them to students of their choice by taking huge donations.