Quota seats filled on first day

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All MBBS seats earmarked for “special categories” were filled on Thursday, the first day of the allotment of MBBS and BDS seats in government colleges for this academic year.

Counselling for the regular rank list will start on Friday and will be held at the Kilpauk Medical College. The first phase of the counselling will last 10 days and if there are any seats vacant after that a second phase will be held.

However, this is highly unlikely as there is tough competition for MBBS seats with more than 27,000 candidates vying for just 1,696 government college medical seats.

Candidates who had applied under the special categories — sports quota, quota for students with orthopaedic disabilities, and quota for children of freedom fighters and children of the armed forces — were evaluated on Thursday.

As much as 3 per cent of the seats were allotted to candidates with disabilities, who underwent medical check-ups to assess the extent of their disabilities.

Three seats were allotted to top-ranking sportspersons and three to children of armed forces personnel.

As there were no applicants for the three seats allotted for children of freedom fighters, they were automatically given to the general quota, said Dr R.G. Sukumar, chairman of the DME’s selection committee.

Health minister Dr V.S. Vijay and health secretary Girija Vaidyanathan presented allotment letters to the chosen students.

A revised rank list was published on the website www.tnhealth.org [2], after taking into consideration changes in marks for the students who had given their papers for re-evaluation.

The students were intimated through letters and SMSes, of their change in ranks and counselling schedules.